First AMD build. thoughts?

NAND ssds are perfectly stable regardless of interface, but so is normal RAM. If you want stability in one, then why not the other? If RAID with SSDs is overkill in reliability for the build then why bother with ECC ram in the first place?

You can do one without the other, but to my brain at least, it makes more sense to do both, and care about reliability, or neither, and focus on performance.

so should i switch to samsung nvme which has vnand(so i can have performance and stability if i am correct)? would that make more stable? and do ecc with samsung vnand

im still learning all this technology/terms. I know nothing about raid really. isn't there risk in doing raid?

All of the storage technologies right now are prone to failure. It isn't a matter of switching one for another, but rather trying to insulate from the failure of any one drive.

Redundant Array of Independent Disks technology can be used to decrease reliability in order to gain dramatically increased performance (RAID 0, higher risk) or to keep performance level and dramatically increase the reliability of storage (RAID 1, lower risk) by adding additional disks. There are some other RAID levels as well.

Setting one up, even a simple 2-SSD wide array, is probably overkill for your purposes, but then again so is ECC RAM. Both technologies need to be configured in order work. If you are looking for a basic, reliable enough setup without any additional configuration overhead, then I would get 1 NVME drive, and normal RAM. If you would like to be able to enable ECC mode later on, get ECC ram instead, along with an NVME drive. The choice to enable RAID should not be made later on since it requires a second disk and forming an array can bork the data on the array. RAID should also be used with similar disks, so 2 2.5" SATA SSDs seem like more of a natural fit instead of a single NVME drive. NVME drives are faster than SATA ones, all else equal.

Only you know how much you care about performance vs reliability.

thank you for the clarification. Is raid 1 easy to set up? also is ecc easy to enable(is it similar to xmp profile for ram)?

For RAID, the mobo manual should have a detailed information regarding how to enable it. Basically, set the storage controller mode to "RAID" or "AHCI/RAID," select both disks in a special menu after booting and pressing some special key (like F9 or w/e) and then install the RAID/ACHI driver provided by the manufacturer if using Windows. IDK about linux.

For ECC, it is just a setting in the BIOS or UEFI, always off by default, just turn it on.

Don't make a workstation / nas all in one unless you have too.

Make a workstation machine for work. Excel, Word and Email.

A NAS with COW and snapshots and off site backups as a different box.

I say this as a linux user with 4 random drives in a BTRFS raid 1 pool out of cost.

so ur saying no raid?

Not on a office machine. Keep it lean and mean... Having a nas back it up or at least the user data is important.

nvme and ecc or regular ram

The point of having RAID on a workstation is to increase reliability of components that are very prone to failure (storage). If doing ECC memory, then it makes sense to also do RAID since reliability -not backups- is a concern.

While backups are also important, RAID is not a backup solution, nor does it lesson the need for backups or otherwise conflict with the point of having a NAS in any way. Nor does needing a NAS conflict with a simple 2-disk RAID 1 at a workstation.

Whether ECC + RAID1 or non-ECC, single disk is more appropriate, or even weird combinations like RAID1 but no ECC, or ECC w/o RAID1 is @astimp13's decision.

Dont over think a simple thing a pc can be a OS with everything on a server thats backed up and secure to a machine like everyone using for 5-10 years with nothing and works out of the box.

if i dont do raid is there any benefit in stability or anything in getting ecc?

Yes. RAID and ECC Memory are both attempts at stabilizing different aspects of a computer system and neither one is required for the other. RAID 1 attempts to improve non-volatile storage reliability (SSDs/HDDs), and ECC memory attempts to increase the reliability of volatile memory (running programs basically).

A system can have normal memory and no raid (normal systems, performance oriented), ecc ram without raid, non-ecc with raid, or both ecc and raid (sever-grade reliability).

Personally, I prefer storage redundancy techniques, like RAID, and no ECC, but other people prefer always having both, and some people on this thread are recommending ECC memory without also recommending RAID. Realistically, normal ram and a single NVME drive is probably fine. Use however much reliability in whatever components you think is appropriate for the build.

RAID is not giving you stability. It is only giving you a false feeling of safety for your files.
Here is a classic Wendell for you:


Already told you, there is a benefit to it but there are other things to do first.

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What exactly does "stability" mean? RAID 1 across 2 drives protects against the failure of either drive. Being unaffected by 1 drive failure in terms of data accessibility is what I meant in this case.

Can RAID 1 fail in various ways? Of course it can, so can anything else. However, in the end and in the typical case, two drives in a RAID 1 mirror gives more stability than only having 1 disk. That fact is undeniable.

Well, it means that a system does not crash. And ... fine, it gives you the chance of not crashing if your SSD controller suddenly decides to kurtcobain itself. But for someone not transferring massive amounts of data from or to that drive, the chance of failure is very low to begin with. And RAID1 won't help with data integrity at all, like ECC does. So you are mainly adding cost for the second drive and maybe even introduce a new point of failure.

RAID isn't meant to handle integrity, it is meant to improve your chances of not being dead in the water if a drive fails. It does that. It does not do other stuff it is not meant to do. I agree with you that it does not do those other things that it is not meant to do. So what?

ECC ram does literally nothing to protect against data integrity with regards to when that data gets written to a disk. And if you are concerned about "data integrity" in the first place, then you should have a lot of backups, not ECC ram and of course that means it would still be a better idea to get a second disk.

Wait what? Are you actually arguing that using RAID 1 as opposed to merely a lone drive increases your chances of "failure"? Here is a more basic sanity question: Do you think using RAID 1, as opposed to a lone disk, increases or decreases system stability, as I have defined it?

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Correct. You would need a self correcting file system for that. But it does protect (more than DDR4 already does) from flipped bits in memory and therefor also does help with system stability.

Since we are talking just about the desktop system itself here I assumed that a backup situation is already sorted out. But again, yes of course. I agree.

Yes, of course. You are using an additional system that all of your reads and writes have to pass. That is by definition one more point of failure.

Wow those are easy demands, my 8 year old core 2 duo laptop does all that and more.

Correction: That is by definition, one more point of redundancy. While it is true that it can technically fail, what it actually does is to provide isolation from failure of another component, meaning that one is moving away from having any one point of failure in the system. Your statement about it being "one more point of failure" is misleading in this regard.

The takeaway here is that RAID 1 does increase system stability, but should not be thought of as providing data-oriented integrity. That is what backups are for. The concepts are just not the same. In all honesty, both ECC and RAID are more for servers. Assuming backups are already being made, caring about system reliability without either ECC or RAID, or just one or the other seems... odd. Both are needed since they both increase system stability in situations where reliability is actually worth investing into.

For end-users, even if their workstation's drive gets some corruption or some bit gets flipped and their OS dies, they can just run reboot and run chkdisk. For major errors, that just means using their laptop and working from backups for the day instead.