Do I need more ECC RAM?

[amitkhas]

Hi,

I am not sure whether I need more ram. My current write speeds are 30MB/sec. The FreeNAS system is on a wired gigabit router.

My system:
System: TS140
Processor: Intel i3-4130 3.4GHz
Memory: 2x 4GB ECC Ram
HDD: 4x 3TB WD RED NAS Drives

While writing several thousand files onto the system, here is the memory load.

I am still new to this, but I read that it was averaging ~700MB free. Does that mean the 8GB ECC memory is sufficient, or is it reserving 700MB ram for performance reasons, but could easily benefit with more ram?

Thoughts?

 

[Ericloewe]

Having 16GB certainly wouldn't hurt. 8GB is lowish.

FreeNAS will use as much memory as you throw at it.

 

[amitkhas]

The cost of ECC ram isn't cheap, so I didn't want to add unless it was required.

Would adding another 8GB improve the transfer speeds?

 

[Knowltey]

The cost of ECC ram isn't cheap, so I didn't want to add unless it was required.

Would adding another 8GB improve the transfer speeds?

It *could*, but it entirely depends on usage scenario and how much you are actually gaining from caching in the first place. If you're just using it at home with only a few users you likely aren't going to see anything

 

[amitkhas]

It *could*, but it entirely depends on usage scenario and how much you are actually gaining from caching in the first place. If you're just using it at home with only a few users you likely aren't going to see anything

Thanks! That's exactly how i"m using it. I'll hold off on the ECC Ram then.

 

[Knowltey]

Thanks! That's exactly how i"m using it. I'll hold off on the ECC Ram then.

Yep, most of that usage is caching. However the hard drives can in and of themselves already max out a gigabit network connection easily, so you'll only really see advantage once the hard drives are having to work hard enough where it'll cause access times to drop low enough.

I see it every once in a while if I'm streaming a high bandwidth video file from the server (I don't do plex transcoding, just playing the .mp4 or whatever directly in VLC) and sometimes that'll make other file accesses and directory listings slower to react, but the cache helps in that commonly accessed things won't have to read from the discs.