ECC ram advice
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Uptime isn't critical unless it would last more then a day.
But i have seen windows failures before which had to be repaired due to a ram failure while the system was running so i'm guessing the same could happen to a pfsense box which would render the box usless and require a system repair or in worst case a new installation of it.
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My experience with RAM is that OS crashes due to bad RAM does happen but it's rare. A single bit mismatch in RAM may or may not crash the OS but chances of that happening is pretty slim.
It would make a difference if you use RAM to hold data such as log files. You may not care too much if some of the logs gets corrupted before it gets written to disk.
I am facing this situation on my next new build of a NAS server that uses FreeBSD running ZFS. ZFS caches the data in RAM so ECC is important as I don't want it to corrupt my data. Even tho it's rare but wouldn't be to happy if one of my favorite pictures is corrupted and no backup. I am having a tough time finding a decent Mini-ITX motherboard with decent number of SATA ports that uses ECC memory. It's out there. Gotta find it.
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You don't need it like you should in a ZFS box, but it can't hurt. Having ECC in your NIC buffers is probably more useful for pfsense duties.
However, if very close in price or happens to come that way because its a prebuilt system or off-lease server, why not?
Right after the hynix fire last year, unbuffered ECC was cheaper than same speed consumer sticks for about a week and I helped myself to some, I think the usual online retailers forgot to mark up existing inventory.
(BTW, contrary to popular internet "wisdom", ECC ram by itself is not slower, registered/buffered modules are what add clock cycles)
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Really it is important when you are storing data that needs to be reusable. Anything going across that was senstive enough would be using TCP or some sort of parity anyway.
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Exactly, you're not really storing any critical data in pfSense. The security risk is low as well since it's more likely to result in the box crashing and disconnecting everything. The risk you have is that some ram will fail causing the box to go down and you'll see some downtime. Either a short amount if it reboots or you reboot it or a lot more if you have to replace the RAM and you don't have spares available (or a spare box or a carp pair).
Steve
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I am having a tough time finding a decent Mini-ITX motherboard with decent number of SATA ports that uses ECC memory. It's out there. Gotta find it.
-> http://www.asrock.com/server/overview.asp?Model=E3C226D2I
you just have to find a retailer ;)
Xuio
EDIT: this one is even better http://www.asrock.com/server/overview.asp?Model=C2750D4I
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For a 'home' application? Unlikely you 'need' ECC RAM.
For a setup that has to work, every time, no matter what, and is potentially remotely located?
Well, there you'll have to factor in the 1.5% - 2% higher failure rate for non-ECC RAM, and decide for yourself.
ECC RAM is inherently more reliable. -
I am having a tough time finding a decent Mini-ITX motherboard with decent number of SATA ports that uses ECC memory. It's out there. Gotta find it.
-> http://www.asrock.com/server/overview.asp?Model=E3C226D2I
you just have to find a retailer ;)
Xuio
EDIT: this one is even better http://www.asrock.com/server/overview.asp?Model=C2750D4I
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157475
Nice board but I choked on the price. Almost $400??
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157475
Nice board but I choked on the price. Almost $400??
you can also get the cheaper Quad-Core version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157419
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Supermicro PDSMI+ with a Xeon Dual Core 3070 is a spiffy little system for under $50. Its FAR from a great system but its cheap and fits in a 1U case.
Dont remember if its ECC or not.EDIT: Yes its is ECC capable. Up to 8Gigs.
