ECC memory and battery backup

[semaj]

I have a primary freenas with 8 GB memory and a backup freenas replicated by rsync. The usage is just for home use1-2 users. I have read how there is risks of losing data without ecc ram but i was wondering if I really needed ECC ram or if i should put it into battery backup so it can shut down gracefully if there is a power outage(assuming the ups will work that was with freenas). i would prefer to minimize how much more money i spend to get these up and running.

Should i replace the 8 gb of memory in each freenas (total 16 gb) and buy ECC ram?

 

[krikboh]

The ECC memory requirement is not related to a graceful shut down. Every time FreeNAS runs a scrub on your data with non-ECC memory you run the risk of data loss.

 

[semaj]

How common of a risk is this, especially for a home user?

 

[krikboh]

http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/ECC-vs-non-ECC-RAM-and-ZFS.15449/


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[semaj]

Thanks for the link and wealth of material. To summarize for archival sake...

The risk of failure may be relatively low but if it happens without ecc ram is so potentially catastrophic ecc ram is pretty much required even if you are doing backups. Ecc ram is even more important in zfs raid because it utilizes your memory heavily for raid functionality.

 

[krikboh]

Exactly.