In this head-to-head episode of TrueNAS Tech Talk, Kris and Chris discuss the burning question of decades of TrueNAS users - “ECC or Non-ECC?” Myths will be busted, lines will be drawn, and we’ll talk about just how deep the ECC rabbit hole can go.
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One of the more fun and spirited shows I’ve done, really enjoyed this topic and the conversation!
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Love systemd-sysext, good change! Good discussion, ECC is not required for sure, but I won’t run my server without it.
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@kris at 1:37 you mention systemd-sysext as a solution to the nvidia GPU driver challenges that have been experienced. Is this a potentially cheap solution to challenge of including the drivers for Coral TPU (PCI-E versions)? I imagine that frigate NVR is a potentially important app for enterprise and prosumer alike (never mind that a B&M key TPU can cost less than the screws for some servers!)
Good video, I enjoyed listening 
Very much enjoying the TrueNAS Tech Talks!
Also fun to see the people behind the avatar.
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Not enought blood and guts!
Actually I thought it was interesting but now I will not push ECC RAM on people. My opinion has changed a bit. I will still use ECC but that is my choice.
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Maybe adding the “famous” quote from Matthew Ahrens, cofounder and developer of ZFS:
And in the same comment:
“I would simply say: if you love your data, use ECC RAM. Additionally, use a filesystem that checksums your data, such as ZFS.”
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It’s quoted and chapter-linked right in the video, as well as that exact same URL in the description.
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Wanted to give it a bit more prominence, you cannot say it often enough:
"if you love your data, use ECC RAM [and…] ZFS.”
(Yeah, I overlooked it the youtube teaser post 
)
Kris and Chris.
Enjoyed this one and thanks for the debate/discussion on ECC, highly informative and gtk ECC is not as “essential” as say, a good backup regime.
Great plus too with the info on NVR, gaming M$ v Linux et all, nice one.
Gotta say Linux has come a long way and thanks to cross platform/FOSS is starting to become a serious and viable alternative to the dominance of M$.
Fwiw, being using TrueNAS Free, Core, Scale community versions since 2017ish. I use the h/ware that’s available so for RAM, it’s mainly non-ECC.
Biggest issue and not knowing, installing larger capacity HDDs of the SMR variety. Ouch!
Keep up the engaging vids/podcasts/episodes.
Enjoyed the back and forth. Conclusion is a good one too. My pet peeve remains that folk are only too happy to buy expensive motherboards with Realtek NICs and non-ECC Ram, etc because in their mind a kick-butt gaming rig is also a good candidate for a NAS - and it likely isn’t.
Too little attention up front on use case, leads to $$ expenditures that really represent a sunk cost more than anything. So many decent X10SDV and like boards out there that make fantastic file servers for very little money yet use ECC, high quality HBAs and NICs for a fraction of the cost of a gaming rig.
Supermicro knows this too - they still make a bunch of x10SDV motherboards precisely because their current motherboards are geared towards NVME, computation, etc. not traditional file servers with HDDs. Yet, there are plenty of folk who are still building file servers who prefer low power consumption and excellent performance for that use case.
Similarly, take the D-15xx series of chips and compare the 17xx or 20xxx series of Xeons and tell me what makes a later chip so much better than the 15xx. That 15xx series hit a sweet spot re: PCIe lanes, power consumption, etc. making it perfect for file servers with some expansion options. Atoms could not compete with them other than in mini-ITX and even there Asrock has shown that more can be done (570 board with ryzen and oculink x2).
At the moment, the crown re file servers is likely going to AMD on account of PCIe lanes that allow either NVME or SATA. Talk about future-proof.
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Take it from someone that has had NAS data curruption due to memory flipped bits. It takes exactly 1 time for it to happen to you and you will be making sure ECC is installed in your NAS.
There is no discussion on ecc vs non-ecc. The question is…
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