Advantage of ECC memory

[schultzey11]

I have 512mb of crucial pc2100 memory in my system. The guy that helped me build it suggested it because it would take care of any errors that may happen. The only thing I noticed is very slow startup time. My old p3 600mhz machine starts before my new one does. Why have ECC memory. I suppose my startup time will increase more if I get another 512mb of memory in the future.

 

[Confused]

You got ripped wide open.

ECC memory is normally slower, due to the error checking, but most consumer level boards do not support ECC anyway. It is only really useful in servers and for software that needs total accuracy (running Word and Internet Explorer isn't really needing a huge amount of error checking and finite levels of precision in calculations


Confused

 

[schultzey11]

I do video editing, however waiting for this thing to start up is taking forever and I'm not sure it is worth it. The motherboard I have is a server type motherboard and does support ecc memory.

 

[Confused]

Well if you've got a sever motherboard, then that's OK

How much crap do you have running in the background? What hard drives you got? What CPU etc?

If it's annoying you with the time it takes to start up...go make a cup of tea? Leave it on 24/7? Of course more memory is always good, but I doubt it will help startup times much, it will just make everything seem a bit snappier when using it


Confused

 

[schultzey11]

I've got dual amd mp 2000+ proccessors with a seagate 36.7 gb scsi hard drive and a lsi ultra 160 controller. I also have a 120 gb ide wd special edition hard drive for backup.

New question. What is the maximun filetransfere rate I should expect when transfereing large file from my scsi drive to the 120 gb western digital drive? Lets say 20 gb.

 

[andreasl]

What do you mean by startup time? During the boot or time to launch the application in windows?

 

[sharkeeper]

I do video editing, however waiting for this thing to start up is taking forever and I'm not sure it is worth it. The motherboard I have is a server type motherboard and does support ecc memory.

What board is it? AMD 761/762MPX chipset does support ECC. Unfortunately, it has to zero fill the ram during POST. Depending on the amount of RAM, this can be a solid minute (for 2GB) before you see anything on the screen.

The good news is you don't have to have this feature enabled! You can turn off ECC in your BIOS and your startup will be faster.

Startup times are slower with SCSI Host Bus Adapters as well.

Transfer rates should be around 45 MB/S sequential with single large files and much less with folders containing thousands of tiny files such as documents.

Don't worry about the speed difference ECC vs. NON ECC. It's so tiny it's only detectable with benchmarks and good ones at that.

Cheers!