Is it currently worth buying new memory?

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Here’s the deal:
My server needs a reinstall, but really it needs a hardware update.
From core2quad to ryzen 2400G.

The question is, do I use the extra ram i have lying around (4x4gb ddr4-3000 gskill sticks from 2014),
or grab some ECC ram since it’s my home/small business server? Any speculation on if/when ddr4 will go down in price? server is linux using zfs for data storage, if it makes any difference (might jump to freenas for the reinstall).
I figure I can use the stuff I have, and upgrade to ECC when it’s cheaper, but I’d like to hear everyone else’s insights.

  • non-ECC is fine
  • ECC sooner is better
  • Upgrade later, not critical

0 voters

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If your server is just a fileserver and not doing HPC number crunching, maybe you don’t need ECC.

Fact you’re using zfs already buys you a lot more robustness compared to a Windows NTFS file server with ECC.

If you want to enable dedup and upgrade your drivers 2-3 years down the road, get more ram, ECC would be nice to have at that point.

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Considering the information provided you don’t need an ECC memory. As @risk stated unless you are doing number crunching you don’t need ECC memory… further researching on system integrators sites like Ant PC , Pugest systems and ibuypower even they use ECC only with Xeons or i9 … so all in all go for non ecc.

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There will be alot of people who will insist you get ECC, just from reading the phrase ZFS. Is ZFS best used with ECC memory? Yes. Is it required? No. Should you get it for your circumstances? My opinion is no.

In the case of enterprise obviously you wouldnt want to be the one that didnt recommend ECC memory if data corruption occurs, but for home use for simple ZFS with shares I think you’re golden

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Last I read the 2200G and 2400G don’t really work with ECC.

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Ah, I wasn’t aware of that, at all. Some quick googling brings some reddit banter that says the same. Either way, that pretty much answers the question. @Eden feel free to lock, thanks all

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It’s weird. AMD has said that ECC functionality hasn’t been disabled on the APUs, but I’ve never seen ECC actually functioning on them either. If I still had a 2400G I could have tried it out…

Anyways, as the people have spoken, ECC shouldn’t be a pressing matter for personal/home use.

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