Q re: ECC Ram

[Robert Thomspon]

Hey guys, so, it's been a few years since I first set up a NAS, a few less since I first set up TrueNAS (back then, FreeNAS) and am in the midst of reconfiguring the majority of my homelab. Buying new equipment, changing things up, upgrading, side grading, minimalizing, all the fun stuff we do about every 5-7 years...

Anyway, with all the progress we've made with data safety and whatnot, is it still recommended to use ECC Ram on a TeueNAS Scale build? (Mostly looking at the benefits an i series will run in the long-term vs the just shear durability of a xeon (those benefits largely being the on board GPU, and significant price difference for used hardware, let alone brand new metal...)

I run about 48tb, services are segregated from the main NAS and shared via NFS. Right. Ow I'm on an r730xd, but would like toove to a newer i5 12th Gen, or an i7 11th or 12th Gen, or even possibly an i9 if the price is right and there's anything to gain from it. (Don't worry, I'm not dumb enough to think that spinning down my drives will save me money... Short OR long term...) And ECC vs Non ECC price differences right now are negligible. I DO host SOME data that is critical but it is always backed up within 48 hours, so a loss would lead to 2 days of data lost at absolute worst case scenario. But otherwise, it's mostly tv shows, movies, books, audiobooks... You know, the fun stuff (none of that is backed up because I just don't care enough about the data to bother, it's just crazy easy to replace). I'm looking for a really low idle power usage outside of keeping the drives spinning constantly. And the only benefit I can find from running a xeon (read: power hungry monster) is the ECC ram.

 

[joeschmuck]

is it still recommended to use ECC Ram on a TeueNAS Scale build?

Yes. It still uses ZFS file system which benefits from it.

I'm looking for a really low idle power usage outside of keeping the drives spinning constantly.

A lot of people have been searching for that perfect combination of hardware. Some have good idle power but you will need to do some searching for the few postings on these builds. Most of these folks were after, small, quiet, energy efficient.

If your current hardware (MB, CPU, RAM, etc) works for you and you do not need to replace it, then just upgrade your hard drives as needed. Or in other words, don't fix it if it already works. But it you just want to upgrade (I understand that), take a look at this...

Hardware Recommendations Guide

This is the latest edition of the FreeNAS Community hardware recommendations guide. The current major version is R2, dated January 2021, with the last minor update on 2021-01-24. The format has moved away from the forum post form factor, to...

www.truenas.com

 

[Robert Thomspon]

I'm not all in on minimal power... But, I'd rather spend some money now, save some money on power (save up for solar ;) ) (kidding about saving for solar, our house doesn't have enough exposure to really run the property... Yet)

But, I would like better bang for my buck.

 

[danb35]

is it still recommended to use ECC Ram on a TeueNAS Scale build?

It's recommended to use ECC any time you care about your data--TrueNAS or not, CORE or SCALE, ZFS or not. Nothing's changed in this regard, nor is it likely to.

 

[Arwen]

One thing people over look is that statistically Non-ECC memory WILL have failures. Okay, perhaps at extremely rare times. However, now that ZFS is protecting billions of petabytes, (okay I don't how much total... just guessing), their are bound to be failures from Non-ECC memory that cause data loss. Or pool loss.

Specifically, in memory corruption of an already check-summed block, that ends up being written to disk may be found by ZFS during the next scrub. BUT, in all likely hood that data is lost permanently unless you have unrelated backups. (Backups of corrupt data, simply restores corrupt data...)

Then their is the case of not yet check-summed block, that got corrupted. Along comes ZFS to give it a valid checksum and write it to disk. Except ZFS will never detect this as bad during a scrub unless it was metadata that is invalid, (like compression algorithm value not yet assigned), then still data loss. Potentially entire pool lost.

This is just for ZFS data, which is most of the movement. However, their are program code and data blocks that could also be corrupted...


Are these rare?
Of course!!!

But, do you want to be a statistic?

 

[joeschmuck]

However, now that ZFS is protecting billions of petabytes

Sounds close enough to me

 

[joeschmuck]

(kidding about saving for solar, our house doesn't have enough exposure to really run the property... Yet)

I get the sun, just can't afford the solar panels. I would never see a return on my investment before I die, as sad as it sounds, but I've always wanted solar power. Now I'll settle on a small perpetual battery like in the movie Knight and Day, without the overheating of course.

 

[danb35]

I get the sun, just can't afford the solar panels.

My server rack runs on used 250W panels I got for about $50 each from santansolar.com, along with a pretty hefty battery bank. You can do it on a budget if you shop around.

 

[jgreco]

santansolar.com,

I did a double-take on that when I read that danb35 was running his NAS on solar panels from satansolar.com.

 

[Dice]

I did a double-take on that when I read that danb35 was running his NAS on solar panels from satansolar.com.

Actually did exactly the same >.<

 

[Arwen]

Hey, I missed the SECOND "n", as in santasolar.com, which I initially thought was a joke. Had to re-read the URL again to realize I missed a character.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

I just ordered a "Balkonkraftwerk" (balcony power plant) with 400 W peak. The complete set is under 500 €. That pays for itself in 3-4 years easily. 20 years warranty for the panel.