121–130 of 146 posts
I'm with you, but it's worth noting that errant bit-flips are also the most convincing argument for vertically integrated file-systems like ZFS and BTRFS.
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> AMD ryzen CPUs have ECC support Not all of them, afaik the am4 processors with graphics don't unless you have a pro branded version. > I never did figure out a way to verify that the ECC is working/if it is able to report errors (to the kernel? The easiest way is to induce an error. Some of the memtest tools try? But also, you can tweak memory voltage and timing to make things less reliable, and you should be able…
I think the question is where are the errors reported? Would you see logs in dmesg for example? Or is there some smartctl-like tool that exposes the raw correction counters?
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I doubt that would actually be useful with overclocking. I don't know the arch of the modern PC well enough to say with 100% confidence, but on embedded arches, the RAM has the parity bits checked when they get placed on the bus. If the error happens on data retrieval(or was already present) , then the ECC saves you, but if it happen anywhere else... not really? I don't know if.. ALU's for example automatically inclu…
They specifically mean overclocking the memory.
Read the paper(s) below. Absolutely frightening, we all basically swimming in quicksand. ECC should be mandatory! Not using it is like huffing leaded gas. Silent Data Corruptions at Scale https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.11245 Harish Dixit has two other papers available https://arxiv.org/search/cs?searchtype=author&query=Dixit%2C... Revisiting Memory Errors in Large-Scale Production Data Centers: Analysis and Modeling of N…
https://kilthub.cmu.edu/articles/thesis/Large_Scale_Studies_...
My big complaint is actually digging through the mess of MB/RAM/BIOS documentation to actually verify that I have the right combination of processor/motherboard/memory for ECC AND TEST IT'S WORKING . AMD seems to support ECC on some consumer-level chipsets, but it's a nightmare to sort it all out and verify that all the bits are actually functioning properly.
Were you able to find a consumer motherboard that supports fault injection (or whatever it's called)? I was able to verify that the motherboard reported ECC was working and performed a 24/hour burn in, but I have been unable to perform a functional test showing that ECC had corrected an error.
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Some people prefer to trade off stability for a slight performance improvement. With modern hardware I don't think it's worth it to be honest. I want my computer to work day in and day out even if it means a 2% lower score in some benchmark.
Yeah personally I’d rather build a PC with efficient power supply and quiet, high performance cooling. No gaudy LEDs either, just a plain case. I want it to be very stable and reliable and unobtrusive.
Good luck with that. https://chainsawsuit.krisstraub.com/20160223.shtml
Last time I was looking for a case, this was a real issue.
Personally used about an even split of ECC vs. non-ECC RAM over the last ~30 years and can't say I've ever encountered any problems with non-ECC RAM. If it happened it was no significance for me to notice. Professionally yeah I've run across a server here and there report bit errors but it was a four leaf clover the of thing. Not unheard of but not common. The more important thing in my experience is using high quali…
This kind of comment is the most insightful kind concerning ECC RAM. If you're relying on your computer to be 100% error-free (eg: doing professional work), paying some extra for ECC RAM support isn't even a drop in the bucket. You either do or don't, money isn't an object. If you're Joe Average browsing Hacker News or playing some games at home, who cares if you win the bit flip lottery? Would it be nice for ECC RAM…
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I would welcome more recent data, but I doubt we are talking about a 4 orders of magnitude change to get to /year vs /hour error rates.
Actually, Samsung claimed a factor of a million lower error rate in DDR5 vs DDR4 due to the on-die ECC. Source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16900/samsung-teases-512-gb-d...
That just shows how useful ECC memory is not that these bit flips didn’t occur.
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How about storing the data on a filesystem that performs data checksumming, also configured in a RAID-1-like mirroring profile to enable any corruption to also be corrected? Filesystems like ZFS or BTRFS could be a good choice here.
One of the prime prerequisites of e.g. zfs actually is using ECC RAM. I’m running btrfs with integrity checks, in RAID 1 so it can automatically heal. Yet it’s non-ECC and therefore still has this gaping Achilles heel.
ECC RAM is not a prerequisite for using ZFS.
Matt Ahrens, co-creator of ZFS and still one of the main developers, said this [1]:
"There's nothing special about ZFS that requires/encourages the use of ECC RAM more so than any other filesystem. If you use UFS, EXT, NTFS, btrfs, etc without ECC RAM, you are just as much at risk as if you used ZFS without ECC RAM. Actually, ZFS can mitigate this risk to some degree if you enable the unsupported ZFS_DEBUG_MODIFY flag (zfs_flags=0x10). This will checksum the data while at rest in memory, and verify it before writing to disk, thus reducing the window of vulnerability from a memory error.
I would simply say: if you love your data, use ECC RAM. Additionally, use a filesystem that checksums your data, such as ZFS."
[1] https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/ars-walkthrough-using-...
I'm with you, but it's worth noting that errant bit-flips are also the most convincing argument for vertically integrated file-systems like ZFS and BTRFS.
I was under the impression running such file systems without ECC was kind of reckless and not a solution either? I recall ZFS being “useless” (not technically entirely bulletproof) without ECC.
It's about as reckless as running any other filesystem without ECC [1].
In fact, you're much more likely to discover memory errors earlier if you use a checksumming filesystem than if you use a non-checksumming one.