[OpenIndiana-discuss] Low low end server

[Jim Klimov]

On 2014-02-07 20:54, Robbie Crash wrote:
> For a home job, is there really any reason to use ECC RAM?
>
> Like, real world I mean. Not "Realistically all servers should use ECC RAM
> to protect the sanctity of the harmonious existence of all data from
> interloping cosmic radiation" or whatever, but real world justification?

On my older home NAS made from a PC, there were strange data losses with
ZFS which might be linked to non-ECC RAM, or perhaps heat problems
(though never measured to be extreme overheats), or electric noise on
cables or contacts... since this is an el-cheapo rig, its components
are not expected to be very reliable on one hand (in hardware and in
protocols), and can't be really poked to say they failed - on another.

After all, most of the pee-cee user woes about Windows instability for
example are not so much about poor programming in Microsoft, but about
using hardware where all pricey corners were cut, and then some more ;)

One way or another, ZFS kept finding broken blocks (unrecoverable with
RAIDZ2 over 6 disks), and still does. The box is now in the process of
evacuating data to an N54L and will be repurposed somehow.

The latter has an 8-port LSI controller, uses stock BIOS and does not
use stock SATA ports at all, has 2*8GB Kingston RAM and 4*4TB disks
for the data pool (raidz1, though I'd rather have more disks and a
higher redundancy) and 2*120Gb Samsung Pro SSDs (with powerloss
protection, formatted to use 100Gb for mirrored rpool/mirrored
zil/striped l2arc since their 100Gb sub-model has much higher
reliability and speed - but is not on sale here). I'd say that the
L2ARC on this box could use more volume, it (~2*60Gb) fills up
pretty quickly and does not place a big toll on RAM yet. Disk IO
performance is pretty decent for a home gigabit LAN, processing
not so much (i.e. for compilation), although still quite usable :)

//Jim