Just how important is ECC in a PFSense box?

[JDC]

My apologies if this seems to be a basic question, but I've googled around and I've not found much of anything on this subject (Or my google-foo is just too weak).

I'm seeing a lot of boxes being built, but many of them do not have ECC memory.  I understand that the packets are not in memory all that long, if at all, while being tossed from interface to interface and perhaps mangled a bit (NAT and such), but there still is a chance.

Shouldn't the device that is entrusted with every bit of traffic have some kind of safeguard (and I'm not talking tin foil wrapped around the box) against Something Bad happening, or am I being overly paranoid? :-\

[Cry Havok]

Overly paranoid (maybe) ;)

If a packet is corrupted then the packet checksum won't be valid.  ECC might reduce the changes of that happening, but probably not by very much.

[JDC]

Ok, looks like if I was to go the ECC route, I'd be running into the law of diminishing returns.

Thanks for the input, it is appreciated.  If the Realtek chips on the system I was looking at are too crappy (which they seem to have a good chance of being), I can either find one of the modules for the Compaq dual port I have now or pick up on of the older Sun quad port monster cards.  ;D

[cheesyboofs]

ECC is more for hardware reliability - a standard PC with non ECC memory might blue screen if memory is corrupted but a server with ECC memory will detect a single bit error and correct it. In the old days a server with ECC memory would still blue screen (windows) on a double bit fault where as now-adays the DIMM will more likely be marked off-line.