Hang tight while we fetch the video data and transcripts. This only takes a moment.
Connecting to YouTube player…
Fetching transcript data…
We’ll display the transcript, summary, and all view options as soon as everything loads.
Next steps
Loading transcript tools…
ECC vs Non-ECC RAM for TrueNAS | TrueNAS Tech Talk (T3) E007 | TrueNAS Tech Talk - T3 | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: ECC vs Non-ECC RAM for TrueNAS | TrueNAS Tech Talk (T3) E007
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
This discussion delves into the debate surrounding ECC (Error-Correcting Code) versus non-ECC memory for TrueNAS systems, exploring the necessity, benefits, and practical considerations of each, alongside a brief update on the Electric Eel release and a personal anecdote about transitioning to Linux for gaming.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
hey everyone welcome back to traz Tech
talk this Friday the 13th we're going to
get into a topic that has some strong
opinions on both sides as hinted at
we're going to be talking about the
great debate ECC versus non-cc for your
tras system you might have noticed if
you checked out the advanced poll we had
you have both sides of the opinions
right here in the conversation so
looking forward to this spirited
discussion Chris a vigorous discussion
this is going to be fun really looking
forward to it and joining from my home
office today for those who are wondering
got sick kids in the house so I'm not
bringing that into work but it's fine
it's good we're still going to make this
happen sorry to hear that Chris um so I
think we got a couple little bits of
news just uh quickly before we dive into
things do you want to run us through
some of the uh highlights sure so I
guess the probably the biggest thing to
talk about is the upcoming uh update to
electric eel this will be the first
official dot One release that's been
delayed it was originally sled for this
week on Thursday but it's been pushed to
Tuesday the 17th so in a few days from
now um we had some additional testing
and fixes we needed to get in related to
Nvidia driver setups for those who are
using GPU on their traz so for those who
are curious on the technical details in
the background we had a a significant
number of people with issues in the zero
with the Nvidia driver deployment it was
very Dynamic it would pull the driver
install it which meant there was failure
scenarios with if your network
connection goes down or the driver
doesn't install properly we wanted to
elim at all that so the one we have a
pretty neat system we're using system D
CIS extensions if you haven't looked
that up go Google it it's worth a Google
but the the short version of it is it
allows you to load an optional kind of
uh data set or firmware on top of a
readon rud FS image which is what tras
is by default so kind of a perfect use
case for this where it's a driver that
doesn't need to be deployed on
everyone's system by default and we
don't want it to be you know if you're
running Intel or you have no gpus and
you're doing P NZ work loads why do you
need the Nvidia driver I don't blame you
but if you check the box and want it we
have the ability to go and basically
overlay it on top of the default rud FS
image and provide that functionality for
you perfect use case for this it's a
pretty neat little technology and I
expect you'll see more use of that in
the future we'll talk about that in a
future episode yeah I think that uh we
we did have some bumps in the road
certainly with Nvidia and you know maybe
those who were running the Intel art
gpus were kind of sitting back and going
well this is why you should run that we
do have to think about sort of the uh
the larger majority and the the the use
case for everyone um there's a lot of
Nvidia users there's a lot of Intel
users definitely I think Nvidia has the
lion chair we don't have some metrics on
that maybe that's another poll we're
going to run we'll say you know do you
have a GPU in there and if so what brand
do you have yeah that would be
interesting I say always good to get
some more feedback a lot more people
using the Intel gpus now is what what
I'm seeing that's what I'm personally
running here I had an onboard GPU and
now a dedicated Arc and just kind of
works quite nice yeah the the onboard
Intel gpus have gotten really good
lately especially in the the scheme of
video decode I I wouldn't necessarily
use them for gaming but uh maybe we'll
go into that later in the conversation
if we have time I am drooling over those
new battle mage cards already sold out
when I checked this morning yeah
couldn't couldn't even get a pre-order
in on one so we uh we might have to wait
for some testing but hey we hope that
they'll be uh ready in time for fang
tooth and we'll be having full support
in there absolutely so I guess we should
dive into the big topic that everyone
wants to see the slugfest of ECC versus non-cc
non-cc
absolutely we should mention you did
mention we ran a poll we had over 170
votes I think it was 171 right before
the show when I had checked yeah we'll
put the stats up on screen how it broke
out but I mean as of recording time we
actually had a 70% for saying that for
their own traz they will only use ECC
memory so it was a 7030 split we
definitely have some uh very
enthusiastic folks about their
protection absolutely so that's going to
put me in the uh the minority here and I
got to work extra hard not that I'm
trying to convince you not to use ECC
but I'm just trying to defend those of
us who don't need to use ECC or don't
feel it necessary for our particular
workload so exactly I guess first up
I'll go through some of my thoughts feel
free to counter punch Chris we'll go
through yours you can blow me out of the
water that's great all in good spirit
but uh I wanted to start by just
dispelling the myth out of box you know
for a long time we've heard this myth
that somehow ZFS by its nature requires
ECC somehow more so than other file
systems that's just Flatout false so
let's just kind of put that aside first
ZFS with or without ECC by its nature is
safer for your data regardless and I
think we have a quote from MN about that
a little bit and we'll we'll go over
that from the man himself it so ZFS of
course does a lot of work to always try
and ensure you have data Integrity first
and foremost again ECC or not it's still
doing that work behind the scenes so why
do I not use ECC well bunch of reasons
you know predominantly it wasn't easy to
get over the years when I first started
running ZFS even back in the pcbsd days
and it's also for my workload my traz
workloads um almost entirely read once
write many all right I'm not doing a lot
of things in Ram once the files hit the
dis that's kind of where they sit
Forever Until I replicate them or back
them up to the cloud good I think you
might have had that backwards I think
you said read once write many oh sorry
did I say that think you I think you
mean the other way around I Lexia is
biting me today although although a
backup a backup workload is typically
you know write many and read once for
your verify so if you were doing just
you know time machine backups or system
level backups of all of your programs or
your desktops in your house it could
very well be that read once right many
but I think you mean the other way
around I the other way around it's it's
mostly just backing up data so SMB
shares you know we have family data
photos Etc I write it and then it sits
on the disc forever very rarely read
even I mean yeah of course we'll go into
the photo app and go look for that album
or do some work here and there but the
data changing once it hits the pool is
almost never that's that's so that that
is unique for me I'm a little different
than maybe most folks that way I'm not
running a lot of VMS I'm not running
databases I run a couple apps but
they're the kind of apps where if
something does go wrong I can recreate
or live without out or restore from a
backup not the end of the world for me
personally another thing I'll mention is
none of my clients are ECC either and it
tends to be that the components I buy
and and use to build my own chazes are
higher quality than definitely the
workstations I have hanging around the
house and if I was going to worry about
a bit flip it would be on the the
desktops around the house which are
definitely a little bit more suspect and
maybe of a lower quality overall yeah
it's it's still rare to have that happen
and there there are some of us who are
crazy enough to actually run you know
workstations as their primary PC I admit
I'm not doing it right now but there was
a time in the past where my primary
machine did in fact have ECC yeah it's
just available to me and I said yeah why
not I'm gonna do this can't say I ever
did the only time I really had ECC in my
sweaty little hands was when I was doing
the build farms for pcbsd and I did have
a bunch of servers with ECC and those
guys of course were doing memory
workloads all day it was compiling it
was just beating up the RAM and sure
occasionally I'd see a stick go bad and
toss it I can't say I've ever seen that
on any of my trases though I've
definitely had sticks of ram fail on
some of the workstations and usually
that manifests as you know crashing hard
locks all that good stuff and it was
very easy to sus out additionally I've
never had it happen personally again
antidotal but I've never had it happen
on a system because of age it's always
been a lemon right out of box you know
very caught early you know it's that
it's that bathtub curve that we talk
about with system burning you sometimes
see that in the community they talk
about you either have the very early
failures or the late overtime failures
generally if you make it through those
first couple of months your first couple
big intense rights to the drive and uh
you know hours weeks days up time on the
system you're probably going to be okay
you know we all did that back in the day
when we built our gaming PC it slammed
it with prime 95 or whatever other
workload generator for 24 48 hours and
you said yeah it's good I'll go Ahad
it's stable everything's happy and that
that is where I did tend to shake out
the issues so again because of my
workload it's 99% worm got it right that
time if it wasn't though my math might
change a bit you see what I did [Laughter]
[Laughter]
there that's that's bad hey that's fair
but in summary for me so my stance on it
is ECC sure why not if you have it or
it's available or you don't mind
spending a little extra build the nicest
system you can afford or feel you need
of course why not I would never
discourage anybody from doing that but
the question was is it forbidden or
should we not encourage people to run
ZFS or traz on non ECC systems
absolutely not running on what you got
if that's what you have access to again
I I'll throw a little thought exercise
out here and you guys can ponder on it
I'd love to hear feedback in the forums
as well you know would you trust ZFS
without ECC more than a non- check
summing file system with
ECC I'd say yes ZFS for the winds hand
down it's about the risk profile
honestly the things that are going to
screw you over are going to be your
discs or other components nine times out
of 10 or 99 times out of 100 even
statistically that's what we see that's
what the math shows so again if you have
it you can afford it if you're on an
Enterprise workload if I'm buying
Enterprise gear I kind of expect it
that's just you know kind of par for the
course right but when you don't have
access to it you're building from
components you have available or for
whatever reason can't afford the extra
cost I'd still go ahead and throw trow
on it and say that's perfectly fine and
again but put what into it you want out
of it and in my case it just doesn't
appear to be something that I were I
don't lose any sleep over let's put it
that way yeah yeah that's that's a fair
argument and uh even though I'm coming
down on the pro ECC side of things again
as as you said Chris there's no hard
requirement to use ECC um or do several
other things that you know I might say I
wouldn't do this personally but if
somebody chooses to do it I've I've had
people say they're running their VM
loads async because they can't uh they
don't want to worry about all the
challenges of Slug and I said you know
if you're accepting the risk that you
may to may need to roll back to a
snapshot it they said hey I'm taking
hourly snapshots of my VMS I'm okay with
rolling back to the last hour said you
know what you've made that risk decision
consciously go for it for me on the ECC
side I say you know I I don't want to
take that risk I'm running ZFS for a
reason I want that file system that has
those strong check sums really solid
file integrity so I said I want to
support this as best as possible for me
using ECC is mostly about eliminating
just that one additional potential point
of failure sure my discs could go bad
but I look at it almost as if ECC is
going to save me time I'm not going to
ask hey do I do I have faulty memory in
this system is there something that's
weird going on that I'm getting
unexpected results or um unstable
performance I just go well no I I know
whether or not I have bad memory because
my event log is going to tell me right
there oh machine check error CPU zero
Bank two it's not only going to tell me
there's a bad stick it's going to
identify exactly which one it is so I
can shut down pull that piece of memory
replace it with another one if I've got
it and I'm back up and running and I'm
very confident that everything is going
to work fine and another another
personal choice of mine is I'm not
always using the the fastest latest tech
for the TR systems I talked a little bit
about this on a previous podcast I like
to St a little bit behind the curve I
stay off the bleed Leading Edge of
Hardware when I'm building these so when
I'm looking for it I say ECC memory can
actually be surprisingly affordable in
that space I tend to purchase you know
off leas decommissioned server Hardware
some of you might notice there's a rack
of there's a bunch of rack mounts behind
me um it may or may not be an option
depending on how much power costs where
you are or your level of noise that
you're willing to deal with but if
you're buying into a platform that might
be older and can support the registered
ECC dims they can be comparable cost and
sometimes even lower on a per gigabyte
basis ver just a newer non-cc dim if I'm
just looking to buy sticks of like ddr4
2400 Ram some people might say oh that's
way too slow sure it's too slow for my
gaming PC but for my trz system that's
connected over 10 gig um that Ram is way
more fast way faster than my network
speeds are ever going to be able to
handle the way I to me I just think of
it as you know I'm kind of invested in
ZF fast invested in that Integrity um I
love my data I have it backed up offsite
but you know even until until recently I
didn't have the internet speeds to try
and restore a terabyte in any kind of
reasonable reasonable time period so
maybe I'm stuck in my ways maybe it's
just kind of how I am and I'm saying you
know it's I I I'm going to have the seat
belt I'm going to have the airbags I
want all those kind of collision Warning
Systems on my data because all it takes
for me is I would say it's just if it
happens once once is too many times to
have a corrupted file of a photo I can't
take again or a document that I can't
rewrite then that's fair and again if
that if that's how you look at it and
the risk and the reward I absolutely
understand why people make those
decisions so again not disparaging
anybody who runs ECC I just want to not
in discourage people from not running
traz because for whatever reason they
don't have ECC or opt not to get it um
somebody may ask me has Chris ever lost
data this Chris I have one time so I can
tell you the story on that and it was
new brand new system I built and was
migrating data to it and uh did see
corruption on the pool and the pool was
toast um during the replication it was a
bad HBA in this case it and of course I
wasn't paying close enough attention to
catch it right in the ACT but found out
after the fact replace the
HBA yeah yeah smooth sailing ever since
I don't think I've lost data from a ZFS
file system since it was merged into
FreeBSD and I started using it way back
in the eons gone past with like pcbsd
and stuff so my track record goes good
ask me again in a year I could have some
disaster story and now I'm going to be
like all pro ECC like oh my God I
haven't seen that yet though I'm not
expecting it and again my workload is if
I have to restore it from the cloud I
have the capability of doing that I have
I mean my personal story is I've been
using uh ZFS for almost 15 years at this
point um the only data loss stories I
have are preceding that date ever since
jumping onto the ZFS train I said I
still have all my bits from way back
then I have the you know those old Doom
wads I restored from a floppy drive and
I went hey I made these when I was a kid
I'm putting them on there I I want to be
able to look back at those and and
cringe in another 20 years when I
replayed Doom for the first time that's
awesome yeah I say ZFS really was a game
changer I think sometimes we take it for
granted because that's what we do all
day here Chris you know got to think
back and go oh I remember those ufs days
is and I remember the early days of EXT
and others
and all those different we're a little
spoiled today because ZFS works so darn
hard to try and keep your data intact
absolutely it's it's just one of those
things it's you you take it for granted
and it's I I don't even really think
about it anymore I say when I put
something on here I know it's going to
be safe but hey let's let's maybe you
know let's look at that quote from you
know Matt erens one of the the founders
and developers of the file system where
he says directly quoting there's nothing
special about ZFS that requires SL
encourages the use of ECC Ram more still
than any other file system if you use
ufs EXT NTFS butter FS Etc without ECC
Ram you are just as much at risk as if
you used ZFS without ECC Ram actually
ZFS can mitigate this risk to some
degree if you enable the unsupported ZFS
debug modify flag this check sums the
data while it rest in memory and
verifies it before writing it to disk
thus reducing the window of
vulnerability from a memory error I
would simp simply say if you love your
data use ECC Ram additionally use a file
system that checksums your data such as
ZFS well and that kind of that kind of
sums up the the discussion right there
there's nothing that requires it any
more than any other file
system it's it's another bit of safety
on top of it if you want the the
ultimate and safety you're using ECC
memory everywhere you're using file
systems that check some of your data
Maybe you want continue going down that
rabbit hole and you say hey now my
clients are all ECC go even further you
can say are the are the temporary
Network buffers on the network cards
I've used to build my system are those
ECC protected and hey some of the
Enterprise ones are guarantee you won't
find it on a uh a consumer level one but
you buy an Enterprise level network card
it's actually going to ECC protect those
Network buffers yeah go as far as you
feel you need to to protect your data
and as your budget will allow if you
can't go further hey at least you did
something right with choosing trunz and
ZFS in the first place that's the first
step I think abut starting off on the
right foot and again whatever Hardware
you can get more power to you like I
said I want to I want to see people
using ZFS and trow at the end of the day
I think that's the first step towards
proper data safety and again we should
not go without mentioning please do
backups raid Z is not a backup is not a
backup have backups off site follow best
practices absolutely you could you don't
have to go as far as 321 if you don't
want to but backups are backups are
backups and raidy is about redundancy
and up time yep 100% yeah okay well I
think we have a little bit of time here
that wasn't so bad see we could still be
friends at the end of it eccp people can
mix it's okay yeah it's all right we can
we can still get along you knowy but but
if I'm if I'm not on the podcast next
week guys you know why H we need to talk
after the show oh man no no this is good
this is good and this was a long overdue
conversation it's a Hot Topic and again
if you have other hot topics like this
that we should address or talk about
send it in I'd love to hear that was
actually a lot of fun I purposely tried
not to comment on the poll and all the
back and forth on there because I was
just more curious to see what people
were going to say and which
personalities would come out pro and con
all that so it was entertaining thank
you all I appreciate the dialogue back
and forth it's been fun to watch
absolutely well hey we got a little bit
of time here I mean if we were wanting
to talk about uh stability and uh
avoiding weird crashes and odd behavior
I mean Chris I know you made a bit of a
switch in your main operating system to
uh to dump Microsoft so why don't you
tell us a little bit about the
background there I mean I know you're a
gamer so we've heard a lot of things
about you know oh Linux can't game um
the ex well the existence of the steam
deck and its popularity seems to uh act
contrary to that so watch tell a little
thisit tell us a bit about what happened
a little bit of a personal story here so
indulge me for a moment it's not
directly true now related but it is Tech
and interesting and a lot of us on this
show who listen are Gamers and enjoy
these kind of things anyway so first of
all for my work laptops and all that I
run new bun to that's all Linux life is
good there I use that on all the other
workstations around their house but like
many gamers I suspect here listening
most of us had a Windows system
somewhere that we use as kind of our
primary gaming rig right y guilty is
charged you still do okay guil is Char I
did too like that was just still the
thing to you had your windows box and
that's where you put your fancy GPU and
your high-end Monitor and played your
games well little funny story here a
couple weeks ago over the Thanksgiving
weekend I had some time off and of
course you know if I have a little extra
time I'll go play a game or two so I got
hooked on playing a little bit of
valve's new MOA shooter deadlock which
by the way if you haven't played that
it's a ton of fun if you like DOTA
League of Legends or if you remember
playing Team Fortress 2 it's like this
weird like they got drunk one night
things went too far and then the a baby
resulted and Deadlock came out it was
it's strange it's hard to describe try
it so anyway plug for deadlock aside and
though valve's not sponsoring the show
but all that to say one of the mornings
over that holiday break I went and
booted up the windows on the system and
I just you hit the power button ran to
grab a drink so I could settle in and
play a game well when I got pack I
noticed my browser was open with all my
usual tabs and all that and I'm sitting
there thinking that's funny the kids
aren't up like nobody's touched I don't
remember clicking a button why did the
browser open I didn't set that up what's
going on I started looking closer and I
realized I didn't catch it at first it
was Edge that opened up and helpfully
imported all of my Chrome profiles my
open tabs including my sessions I was
logged into my gmail everything was just
there and even looked kind of like
Chrome like until I noticed the logo in
the corner I was like what who launched
Chrome I didn't click a button well
needless to say this happened without my
approval I didn't get any dialogue there
was nothing do you want to try Edge
click here to import nothing so I don't
know if this is intentional I got hit by
a bug I don't know if others have seen
this but for whatever reason I was just
like Ah hell no no not happening like
that was that was it like you know I've
had my grapes of Microsoft over the
years and it's the reason I don't use it
on anything else apart from the gaming
rig but you know that was one of those
righteous Fury moments where I'm like no
not not without asking I don't care what
kind of marketing thing this is like no
way so all that to say I went and
grabbed one of my iunu USB sticks and
was like nope I know deadlock works on
Ubuntu I had already seen somewhere else
that that works that's all I really want
to play right now anyway I'll just
install Ubuntu and give this a shot and
if some games don't work so be it like
I'm just I'm not putting up with that
again so I installed a buntu I was up
and playing deadlock in probably under
an hour just got it loaded got steam
loaded you know downloaded the game
again all that not only did it work
flawlessly I got better frame rates out
of it oh well yeah it was like an extra
10 20 frames a second I was like this is
nice that's a nice system it's a 4070
Nvidia you know nice 1440 monitor all
that so anyway it I was pleasantly
surprised it's been a few years since
I've gone and done any real gaming
through line which is what we used to
use back in the pcbsd days this is all
proton now yeah but what was interesting
was I started looking a little deeper
after that I was like huh I wonder which
of my games will run on Linux and how
how good is the support and I started
looking it was like 99% of my library
works there was only one two like Legacy
things that were not supported but just
using proton and steam and I mean no
fussing I not H the command line messing
around with wine configs and anything
it's like just click a box yes run it
under proton stuff just works I was
really shocked actually to be honest
that's really impressive I I know I've
kind of looked through some of mine and
I kind of used the uh you know supported
on Steam deck as my guide but maybe
there's some additional things that are
you know overhead in there I I should
check M out and see if it'll work I
admit though I'm I'm probably not going
to jump straight into it I might be one
of those dual booting guys for a while
check it out see what does what doesn't
work um I know I've still been waiting
for years I don't know if anybody's
still waiting for valve to do their own
VR headset again the second generation
I'm I'm a VR gamer and uh you know some
of the stuff I use still doesn't run
properly on uh Linux so I but I could
probably go in there and dual boot and be
be
surprised you really might be surprised
you should try it yeah if I can if I can
minimize it down to say hey I'm only in
uh windows for specific games I mean
it's a step in the right direction I
suppose absolutely so one nice thing I
found was a proton DB website I think
it's run by the community I'd have to
look a little closer but they have this
really cool feature where you can
basically link your steam profile and
it'll analyze everything in your library
and give you the map like what's
supported what's not what's platinum
gold silver all that good stuff and that
was where I went and looked and I was
like well dang everything I have here
runs what shocked me was Marvel Rivals
just came out and I guess that's like an
OverWatch clone I played just the
tutorial in one game the other day it
worked out of box on Linux even though
it's not Linux native it is a Windows
game running at proton it just freaking
worked and it worked well like that's
the that's the shocking part I'm used to
like a certain amount of okay there's
going to be bugs it's going to be slow
glitches and it just worked and ran like
I didn't even mess the fact I wasn't on
Windows if I had sat my kids down they
wouldn't have noticed yeah so anyway fun
little story aside that was my adventure
with uh taking the plan think for
everybody to try on the weekend I mean
hey we got you know another things see
we could find out say who's who's
running Linux already are you know are
we've got the the GPU poll we can have
the the gaming operating system pole
absolutely yeah well I think again if
you haven't done it in a while or if
you're like me and you did run it years
ago it's probably been a good eight nine
years since I ran wine it is nowhere
like it was back then so anyway props to
steam and valve and all the guys who
work on wine and proton and all that
it's come a long way to the point where
again running deadlock it was better
experience on the Linux side than it was
on Windows which again blew me away did
not expect that oh from a valve game I
could I could see that they're they're
pretty uh they're pretty Pro open source
in their own way well steam de CU Linux
Bas all that so they kind of got to be I
get it but still nice to see and I'm
happy to go and at least throw one more
system in their pool of reporting Linux
system so they see traction there 2025
will be the year of the Linux desktop
we're for real this time for real Linux
desktop's here for me now the desktop
part just works like I've had no problem
with that for some time it's the gaming
side that's always been that tough not
to crack but hey maybe maybe we're right
on the verge yeah maybe we'll get there
all right well as I don't think we have
anything else for today as always if you
have any questions or comments for us
feel free to drop down into the comment
section below uh give us some feedback
give us some information ask us a
question you know start a little
spirited discussion but remember to play
nice just like we did here uh you can
also email us at T3 tr.com you can join
us on the traz forums at forums. tr.com
don't forget to like this video
subscribe so you get the notification
for the next one we will be back next
week but then we're going to take a
little bit of a break for the holidays
probably but we'll try to bring a uh a
little bit of uh extra gifts for you
maybe on this coming
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
