New to FreeNAS - quick question regarding RAM

[mustang80]

Hi all,
Brand new to the world of FreeNAS - Haven't even bought the hardware yet. However, I just have a couple of questions, but my main one is regarding RAM...

Ok, so ECC RAM is STRONGLY recommended, and it seems to be a topic that is debated quite a lot when discussing FreeNAS. However, I was just wondering if there is the need for it when building a very basic system? Basically, I want to build a home NAS as a media server - but that's really all. I currently have a basic QNAP NAS, but I like messing with stuff like this. Is the ECC RAM more important if you are running VM's, or is it just as important at all times?

Let's say I just wanted to build a cheap Plex server...would I still be at risk of data loss, or are basic file server tasks not subject to the same level of risk? I know building a FreNAS box for something as basic as Plex is a bit overkill, but it'd be a fun project.

Just wondering whether it's worth the extra ££'s getting a motherboard that can support ECC, ECC RAM, etc., if that's overdoing it for my needs.

Thanks!

 

[Spearfoot]

Hi all,
Brand new to the world of FreeNAS - Haven't even bought the hardware yet. However, I just have a couple of questions, but my main one is regarding RAM...

Ok, so ECC RAM is STRONGLY recommended, and it seems to be a topic that is debated quite a lot when discussing FreeNAS. However, I was just wondering if there is the need for it when building a very basic system? Basically, I want to build a home NAS as a media server - but that's really all. I currently have a basic QNAP NAS, but I like messing with stuff like this. Is the ECC RAM more important if you are running VM's, or is it just as important at all times?

Let's say I just wanted to build a cheap Plex server...would I still be at risk of data loss, or are basic file server tasks not subject to the same level of risk? I know building a FreNAS box for something as basic as Plex is a bit overkill, but it'd be a fun project.

Just wondering whether it's worth the extra ££'s getting a motherboard that can support ECC, ECC RAM, etc., if that's overdoing it for my needs.

Thanks!

Welcome to the forums!

As with so many issues in Life, the choice of whether or not to use ECC memory is yours to make.

As you pointed out, some (most?) forum members are ardent advocates of using ECC RAM. They argue, correctly IMHO, that doing so reduces the chance of data corruption.

But if your data isn't particularly important to you, then why bother with ECC memory? Indeed. But what if you find that you do want to store important data on this server in the future? Something to think about...

Again, this is a choice you will have to make. We can only advise you, and most (all?) of us will advise you to use ECC RAM.

 

[mustang80]

Welcome to the forums!

As with so many issues in Life, the choice of whether or not to use ECC memory is yours to make.

As you pointed out, some (most?) forum members are ardent advocates of using ECC RAM. They argue, correctly IMHO, that doing so reduces the chance of data corruption.

But if your data isn't particularly important to you, then why bother with ECC memory? Indeed. But what if you find that you do want to store important data on this server in the future? Something to think about...

Again, this is a choice you will have to make. We can only advise you, and most (all?) of us will advise you to use ECC RAM.

Hi Spearfoot - thank you for the reply!

I completely understand your stance on using ECC RAM - I know it is always advised that it's used wherever possible.

I get what you mean about whether the data is important, but I'll rephrase and see what you think. I know you will still advise ECC, but just looking for an answer to see if I definitely want to go down this route...

Are there situations where data loss is MORE at risk, or is this a case of 'it can happen at any time', even when just transferring to the system for storage?
I'll only really be storing my BluRay collection on it, but obviously I'd rather not end up ripping them all again I don't have to.

I was just wondering if ECC was more highly recommended for intensive workloads than just storing and streaming movies.

Thanks again for your reply - I know what your answer will be, just trying to understand a bit more about why ECC is recommended in a low usage system. I get it in 'Proper' servers where MANY people could be accessing them, but didn't think it mattered too much on something as basic as I will be using it for.

I will still be backing up externally, but from what I understand... by that time.. it's too late.

Thanks

 

[chris crude]

FreeNAS is mainly a server, that happens to have other cool plugin/VM features. I think once you learn to use it you will wish you had proper hardware to utilize its true potential and kick yourself for having to spend money twice when you could have just done it right the first time. I did. Long story short...

If you want FreeNAS to be server grade and nearly bullet proof, use ECC.
If you are looking for a Plex Server only, and have your files backed up somewhere else properly you can probably get away with not ECC.

 

[joeschmuck]

@mustang80
There is some studdies on the importance of ECC RAM and they explain bit flips and other data corruption. I'd rather not go through everything but I'll try to touch it a bit. (No pun intended). Due to solar winds and where you live you can easily have a bit flip. The problem is there is a possibility that the flip occurs to data being written to your hard drive. Now you have corrupt data and your system is none the wiser. I want to tell you, I did simplify this a lot. Now when you read your data back it will still be corrupt.

So you need to know if this will be an issue for you. Generally it will not when it comes to media. It would be an issue if it were a program and the instruction was from mov ah,0 to jmp EF. (I made that up of course, I'd actually have to look up an instruction and see what the next instruction would be if it had a bit flip). So if this wer your operating system during a bootup you might get the BSOD.

Bit flips are real and they happen every day. You could also have a failure in your RAM or motherboard causing a bit flip. Generally these would be detected but in some instances it may not. Again you could have written corrupt data.

Lastly, if you have a stuck bit (yes it happens but due to hardware failure) and you are doing a scrub, then you can expect your data to be corrupted by the time the scrub is finished.

Does this impact you is your real question and if you are only making a media server and that is it, and you deem your data as not valuable (you could loose it and be upset about it for 30 minutes and then move on) then I say go without ECC RAM and run a Stripe dataset. A stripe data set would mean that loosing a single hard drive would mean a total loss of all data. To me this is almost the same as not running ECC but trying to maximize your money. Okay, I really would not recommend a Stripe pool, I would recommend for you a RAIDZ1 based on what I persive your mindset to be for this NAS.

The bottom line is, its your call. If you have no plans to put valuable data on the NAS then I don't think it's a big deal, but if you plan to create a large NAS (20TB or more) then you have to ask if you feel like restoring that much data and if the answer is no, you need ECC RAM and RAIDZ2 minimum.

That is my friendly advice.

 

[mustang80]

FreeNas is mainly a server, that happens to have other cool plugin/VM features. I think once you learn to use it you will wish you had proper hardware to utilize it's true potential and kick yourself for having to spend money twice when you could have just done it right the first time. I did. Long story short...

If you want FreeNas to be server grade and nearly bullet proof, use ECC.
If you are looking for a Plex Server only, and have your files backed up somewhere else properly you can probably get away with not ECC.

Thanks for the reply Chris Crude!

I know I should. It only makes sense to do that. I think I'm just trying to get others into talking me into doing the right thing 

My problem is that I obsess about these things... I want to build my own server, have everything replaceable and upgradable, but don't want to risk spending a fortune on this if I don't NEED to. I guess I kind of do lol
I just thought that MAYBE the ECC side of things was more necessary under a heavy load, or something.

What's the general consensus with older hardware and FreeNAS? Using a Xeon E3 1225, for example?

Thanks again

 

[mustang80]

@mustang80
There is some studdies on the importance of ECC RAM and they explain bit flips and other data corruption. I'd rather not go through everything but I'll try to touch it a bit. (No pun intended). Due to solar winds and where you live you can easily have a bit flip. The problem is there is a possibility that the flip occurs to data being written to your hard drive. Now you have corrupt data and your system is none the wiser. I want to tell you, I did simplify this a lot. Now when you read your data back it will still be corrupt.

So you need to know if this will be an issue for you. Generally it will not when it comes to media. It would be an issue if it were a program and the instruction was from mov ah,0 to jmp EF. (I made that up of course, I'd actually have to look up an instruction and see what the next instruction would be if it had a bit flip). So if this wer your operating system during a bootup you might get the BSOD.

Bit flips are real and they happen every day. You could also have a failure in your RAM or motherboard causing a bit flip. Generally these would be detected but in some instances it may not. Again you could have written corrupt data.

Lastly, if you have a stuck bit (yes it happens but due to hardware failure) and you are doing a scrub, then you can expect your data to be corrupted by the time the scrub is finished.

Does this impact you is your real question and if you are only making a media server and that is it, and you deem your data as not valuable (you could loose it and be upset about it for 30 minutes and then move on) then I say go without ECC RAM and run a Stripe dataset. A stripe data set would mean that loosing a single hard drive would mean a total loss of all data. To me this is almost the same as not running ECC but trying to maximize your money. Okay, I really would not recommend a Stripe pool, I would recommend for you a RAIDZ1 based on what I persive your mindset to be for this NAS.

The bottom line is, its your call. If you have no plans to put valuable data on the NAS then I don't think it's a big deal, but if you plan to create a large NAS (20TB or more) then you have to ask if you feel like restoring that much data and if the answer is no, you need ECC RAM and RAIDZ2 minimum.

That is my friendly advice.

Thanks Joeschmuck - that was perfectly dumbed down for my level! :D
I honestly didn't think it could be that big a deal on everyday scenarios! I know I have a lot of reading up to do - but was just trying to feel my way through some of the early bits.
I'm honestly not 100% sure where this will end up - 10TB or 20TB. I don't really have much in the way of important data, but what I do have is backed up online and locally. Music movies and maybe laptop backups are all that would be on the server, so not going to ruin my life if I lose everything, but would definitely annoy me.
I think the best course of action is probably to do a lot more reading up and decide to either go for ECC, or stick to home solutions.

Thanks for taking the time to go through all of that for me, and explaining why it could be seen as inconcequencial - but be more important than people may think!

 

[chris crude]

I ran FreeNAS for over a year with old equipment and not ECC RAM. Only thing it did was backup my Windows box with no problems.
Now there are VM options I am glad I updated my gear, but things were working fine before.

 

[mustang80]

I ran FreeNas for over a year with old equipment and not ECC RAM. Only thing it did was backup my Windows box with no problems.
Now there are VM options I am glad I updated my gear, but things were working fine before.

I think I've been convinced to go down the ECC route, so am now thinking about buying old Hardware from ebay and building from that. Just wanted to see if there were any issues with using old Xeon's or anything.

Just a quick question based on your signature... why the 50GB boot SSD? Doesn't FreeNAS only boot from that drive, then run from memory? Or do other things run from the SSD too?

thanks

 

[joeschmuck]

I just thought that MAYBE the ECC side of things was more necessary under a heavy load, or something.

Nope, it has nothing to do with the load of the system.

but don't want to risk speanding a fortune on this

I fear that a FreeNAS server is not cheap, unless you buy an HP ML10 Gen 9 server and then add a single 8GB RAM module. Contact @bent98 as he just purchased this server and will be able to give you some first hand experience with it. The down side with this server is it only can handle six hard drives. @bent98 is moving the motherboard into a larger case and adding a 4 port SATA card to expand his drives to a qty of 8. He is building a media server similar to what you desire. You both should talk.

I'm honestly not 100% sure where this will end up - 10TB or 20TB.

You should know what you will need for the next 3 to 5 years or it will cost you a lot in the way of storage. This is more imporant than ECC RAM because hard drives cost more than the rest of your system.

Just a quick question based on your signature... why the 50GB boot SSD? Doesn't FreeNAS only boot from that drive, then run from memory? Or do other things run from the SSD too?

My advice is to buy the cheapest SSD on the market. If that drive is 32, 64, or 128GB it doesn't matter, the cost matters when it comes to a SSD boot device. I have yet to see a SSD not capable of handling the super light load required by FreeNAS.

 

[mustang80]

Nope, it has nothing to do with the load of the system.

I fear that a FreeNAS server is not cheap, unless you buy an HP ML10 Gen 9 server and then add a single 8GB RAM module. Contact @bent98 as he just purchased this server and will be able to give you some first hand experience with it. The down side with this server is it only can handle six hard drives. @bent98 is moving the motherboard into a larger case and adding a 4 port SATA card to expand his drives to a qty of 8. He is also building a media server. You both should talk.

You should know what you will need for the next 3 to 5 years or it will cost you a lot in the way of storage. This is more imporant than ECC RAM because hard drives cost more than the rest of your system.


My advice is to buy the cheapest SSD on the market. If that drive is 32, 64, or 128GB it doesn't matter, the cost does when it comes to a boot device. I have yet to see a SSD not capable of handling the super light load required by FreeNAS.

I very nearly bought a HP Microserver yesterday to do this with! However, there are 2 downsides with that for me...
1) I feel like it's cheating. It's a ready made solution that I just install FreeNAS on. It's not nearly as fun as building a system.
2) It's not as easy to replace parts in case of some kind of failure. If I build something from scratch, at least I can replace what I need to, if and when I need to.

Thanks for the reply guys! It's really helped clarify the direction I should go in if I decide to do this.

Many thanks

 

[chris crude]

I think I've been convinced to go down the ECC route, so am now thinking about buying old Hardware from ebay and building from that. Just wanted to see if there were any issues with using old Xeon's or anything.

Just a quick question based on your signature... why the 50GB boot SSD? Doesn't FreeNAS only boot from that drive, then run from memory? Or do other things run from the SSD too?

thanks

Faster, more reliable than USB, fewer problems when updating FreeNAS since plenty of extra GB to spare, I had an extra laying around...Haha

 

[mustang80]

Faster, more reliable than USB, fewer problems when updating FreeNas since plenty of extra GB to spare, I had an extra laying around...Haha

lol fair play - Just thought I was missing something with what runs from the SSD lol

 

[chris crude]

lol fair play - Just thought I was missing something with what runs from the SSD lol

Seriously though, i havent used this product or read these forums longer than the moderators or people who wrote the guides but i followed best practices and i havent had any issues. The greatest percentage of the TROUBLE HELP ME! threads seems to consist of bad/dead USB boots, networking speeds, and people who dont use recommended hardware (RAID cards). Follow the information given and you probably wont have issues either.

 

[danb35]

You should know what you will need for the next 3 to 5 years or it will cost you a lot in the way of storage.

The problem is that as you learn more about the capabilities of the system, you find more things to fill your space. I started with a 1 TB USB hard drive on a laptop, moved to 3x 2 TB drives in RAIDZ1 on an old AMD box, and, well...

 

[Stux]

I started by throwing up FreeNAS on a bits&pieces box... worked so well I then built a purpose built platform for it ;)

If you are buying new components to build a FreeNAS system, then you owe it to yourself to invest in ECC RAM... otherwise you will never know why things crashed... maybe it was the RAM... maybe it wasn't. With ECC... it wasn't the RAM.

 

[mustang80]

Seriously though, i havent used this product or read these forums longer than the moderators or people who wrote the guides but i followed best practices and i havent had any issues. The greatest percentage of the TROUBLE HELP ME! threads seems to consist of bad/dead USB boots, networking speeds, and people who dont use recommended hardware (RAID cards). Follow the information given and you probably wont have issues either.

Good advice :) thanks :D

 

[mustang80]

The problem is that as you learn more about the capabilities of the system, you find more things to fill your space. I started with a 1 TB USB hard drive on a laptop, moved to 3x 2 TB drives in RAIDZ1 on an old AMD box, and, well...

This is why I'm not sure what I'll need yet. I currently only have 2x3TB drives in Raid 1... but who knows where I'll end up....

 

[mustang80]

I started by throwing up FreeNAS on a bits&pieces box... worked so well I then built a purpose built platform for it ;)

If you are buying new components to build a FreeNAS system, then you owe it to yourself to invest in ECC RAM... otherwise you will never know why things crashed... maybe it was the RAM... maybe it wasn't. With ECC... it wasn't the RAM.

Thats a good way to look at it! I know the RAM doesn't make the system bulletproof.. but would at least address a known issue.

 

[joeschmuck]

The problem is that as you learn more about the capabilities of the system, you find more things to fill your space. I started with a 1 TB USB hard drive on a laptop, moved to 3x 2 TB drives in RAIDZ1 on an old AMD box, and, well...

So true. I started with a small NAS box with two 1TB drives and that lasted for about 5 years, then I started with FreeNAS and got four 2TB drives, about 6 months later I added two more drives and then later I upgraded to my Supermicro board (only because I wanted to, not because I needed to). It has grown however a person should make the best guess possible up front and learn from our experiences.