My point is the silent data corruption is an even worse consequence of lack of ECC, as it will contaminate the backup too.
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Your frequent reminder that this article is still true:
https://jrs-s.net/2015/02/03/will-zfs-and-non-ecc-ram-kill-your-data/
Plus my personal corollary:
- ECC is better than no ECC in any setting
- ZFS is better than any other filesystem, ECC or not, regarding safety of your data
It really boils down to this. If you are a hobbyist or SMB with some tech knowhow and a time budget to build your own - why would you settle for anything but ECC memory? Take your time, go shopping … if it’s business critical and you need it now there is still the absolutely awesome A2SDi line of mainboards by Supermicro.
Or if $business is of sufficient size, just buy a real server, for crying out loud. ECC is standard with these. But that is of course not the main audience on this forum.
Kind regards,
Patrick
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Whiy is ECC that much important for TrueNAS?
I never heard that my MacBook uses ECC, why there not needed?
I know that you made your research before posting so, I know that I will not be able to brain wash you 
hmmm, just keep the files in your mac.
ECC is beneficial for ANY computer and ANY operating system.
But again: One presumably uses ZFS because one cares about data integrity. ZFS code assumes that RAM is reliable, i.e. it has a built-in assumption for ECC.
Mac Pro and iMacPro have ECC. And I certainly wish that my MacBook Pro had it as well.
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Yes. Me too. And I wish that APFS checksummed data and not just metadata.
(I don’t have hard proof for that statement, but it’s what I’ve heard)
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One of the issues with the Apple File System is just how undocumented the whole thing is. Folk who make recovery / RAID software have complained bitterly re: the lack of documentation. But I heard similar things there re: checksums, ie that it currently only checksums basic directory data, not the files themselves.
I wish my Apple hardware had ECC but Tim Cook likes to make things as cheaply as possible, so it won’t be made that way unless it’s a pro desktop. So clearly the chips and software can handle ECC, the pro laptops don’t get it though.
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Hi There,
I finally built it, following your advices I’ve finally opted for ECC capable system.
Motherboard Supermicro M11SDV-8CT-LN4F (310€)
- AMD EPYC 3201 8-cores (11 Watts idle)
- PCI bus 3.0
- 4x SATA ports
- 1x PCI x16 (support 8x8 or 4x4x4)
- 4x ECC RDIMM slots
Parts :
- 4x16GB@2666Mhz ECC RDIMM Samsung M393A2G40EB2-CTD (70€)
- 2x240GB Crucial BX500 SATA SSD (boot disk) (50€)
- 1x M2 to 5x SATA ports controller JMB585 (46€)
- Case Jonsbo N2 (187€)
- PCIe network adapter 10Gb SFP 82599 (X520-DA1) (45€)
Total without data disk : 708€
Installed true nas scale, all devices are fully recognized. 
Note : I spent 2H trying to figure out why that IPMI Gb port was not coming up… => By default there is a jumper setting that disable that port
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Nice. Looks like a good choice. But I think you need to add a fan to the cpu heatsink.
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Well CPU is less than 50° (the system has no disks for now)
I’ll monitor that once I’ll receive my hdds
Run Prime95 in stress test mode and see what happens.
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…or, polish the metal to remove the paint. Then use it to cook breakfast 
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That CPU heat sink was made for a case that has some reasonable airflow with the case to keep it cool.
50C at idle is pretty hot. As @Stux has said, run Prime95, see what happens then. You are going to hit the 95C thermal cap and throttling of the CPU will start.
This is a photo of the motherboard that is sold with a CPU fan installed.
I’m not saying that you must mount a fan to the heatsink directly (it would work much better) however before you complete your build, consider adding a fan to blow across the CPU heatsink. Or make a plan to move forward if you start to notice throttling. Cooler components tend to last longer.
One thing I liked about this board is the fact that you can bifurcate the x16 PCIe slot into 2x2x2x2 (according to the video I watched, however if I were to need it, I would research it much more). That is very nice to have on such a small board.
I finally attached a 120x120x10 fan under the ventilation grille of the case.
Before, during memtest, CPU temp was 95°, now it’s toping à 60°C
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Please tell me where you bought that stuff at that price!
In Italy that prices are more than doubled