Question Any affordable single board computers with ECC RAM?

[Chikara]

Does anyone know?

 

[whm1974]

Off hand I'm going to say that there aren't any, or at least what is available wouldn't have very much in the way of memory.

 

[aigomorla]

what platform are you looking at?
what is your definition of affordable?
what type of ECC? you looking at unbuffered or registered?
how large is your time frame for delivery?

I can think of a few which would be affordable, but would require used parts to refurbish.
You can get some really good boards from aliexpress on the X79 platform.
You can also find some really cheap Xeons which are betting EOL'd out of servers.
You can make a pretty cheap server setup with that combo, and i hear the chinese reconditioned X79 even supports NVMe.

Or you can go look up the supermicro route, and look for used X10 boards.
DAi if your looking for dual cpu, and S if its for a single.
Supermicro board are tanks, im being serious here, the only board i would consider for enterprise side other then SM, would be an original Intel board if they still made them.

 

[extide]

So he said single board computers which means he is talking about stuff like a Raspberry Pi or Odroid's or similar.

As far as I am aware, no, there are none that have ECC on them. (Do the off the shelf ARM cores even support ECC?)


Why do you want an SBC with ECC anyways?

 

[aigomorla]

a Pair of DDR4 ECC-REG stick will run him more then a RPi setup.... lol...
if that's the case, then you need to change your project.

 

[Chikara]

I want an affordable ECC ZFS file server that consumes little power and is quiet. An affordable ARM single board computer with ECC RAM is the best candidate for this purpose.
Helios4 is close to what I want, but I don't know when it will become available again.

The next best I came up with is the following build plan based on Home Server PC Build: Small, Quiet, Affordable (2019). All prices are local and include delivery cost.

• Passive CPU cooler: ARCTIC Alpine M1 - Passive // ~15 USD
  • Its TDP is 35W.
• CPU: AMD Athlon 200GE // ~53USD
  • Its TDP is 35W, but its actual maximum power consumption is about 19W if I don't use its iGPU.
• RAM: Samsung DDR4 16G PC4-19200 ECC unbuffered // 101USD~133USD
  • Price is fluctuating. Right now, it is cheaper than the 8GB model and is the cheapest ECC unbuffered RAM module on the local market.
• Case: Fractal Design NODE 304 White // ~93.37USD
  • It can contain up to 6 HDDs and 6 SSDs.
• PSU: Seasonic FOCUS Gold SSR-750FM Modular // ~101.82USD
  • This PSU doesn't run its fan until the power load exceeds 50%. It's basically never going to run its fan during its entire lifetime.
• Mainboard: BIOSTAR RACING B350 GTN // ~107.86USD
  • I would use its fan control header to reduce the speed of the rear case fan and create positive internal air pressure.
• Total // 472.05USD~504.05USD

This doesn't include SSD for operating system, though. If I want 5 HDDs or more, I shall include PCIe SATA extension card. An affordable PCIe SATA extension card that supports 2 internal SATA ports is 13~15USD.

This build plan is pretty competitive, compared to commercial NAS devices.

 

[extide]

Well you don't need ECC for ZFS... (I mean it's not a bad idea but yeah there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about how ZFS works)

 

[Chikara]

Well you don't need ECC for ZFS

I don't strictly need it, but I want it, and it helps.

 

[hojnikb]

Does AM4/Athlon even support ECC?

 

[extide]

Does AM4/Athlon even support ECC?

Yes, but "unofficially" I believe.

 

[lopri]

The CPUs support ECC officially. Most motherboards do work with ECC memory but they are not officially supported as extide noted.

 

[Chikara]

The CPUs support ECC officially. Most motherboards do work with ECC memory but they are not officially supported as extide noted.

What do you mean by official support from motherboard?

http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=878#specification says

Support Dual Channel DDR4 3200(OC)/ 2933(OC)/ 2667/ 2400/ 2133/ 1866 MHz
Support Non-ECC & ECC Un-buffered DIMM Memory modules
2 x DDR4 DIMM Memory Slot
Max. Supports up to 32GB Memory

 

[hojnikb]

One thing is for platform to work with ECC ram, another thing is for actual ECC to work as indented. Did anyone tried testing ECC on am4?

 

[lopri]

I have a pair on the way. I should be able to give a definitive answer in a few days.

 

[lopri]

Some boards officially support ECC, it seems.

https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-A-PRO/Specification
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-STRIX-X370-F-GAMING/specifications/

 

[sdifox]

If it is a nas, why not just get an off lease server/desktop and put it in the basement or something. Or is power consumption top priority?

 

[Chikara]

If it is a nas, why not just get an off lease server/desktop and out it in the basement or something. Or is power consumption top priority?

I don't have a basement. I put my nas in my room. I don't trust other physical places, yet.
Power consumption is important, but low noise is more important.
My build plan has ECC, low power consumption, and low noise.

 

[sdifox]

Ecc is not a requirement for zfs.

https://jrs-s.net/2015/02/03/will-zfs-and-non-ecc-ram-kill-your-data/

 

[Chikara]

Ecc is not a requirement for zfs.

https://jrs-s.net/2015/02/03/will-zfs-and-non-ecc-ram-kill-your-data/

I want to minimize bitrots by paying more for ECC. You may not value protection from bitrots.
It ultimately comes down to who resonates more with different cons and pros.

 

[sdifox]

I want to minimize bitrots by paying more for ECC. You may not value protection from bitrots.
It ultimately comes down to who resonates more with different cons and pros.

Fair enough, how many TB is your nas? My understanding is you need at least 1GB ram minimum per TB of drive space. Hdds needs to be cooled too so you have to take that into consideration.


My PE R710 is not all that loud. The BayStack 5520 however is a howler.

 

[Chikara]

Fair enough, how many TB is your nas? My understanding is you need at least 1GB ram minimum per TB of drive space. Hdds needs to be cooled too so you have to take that into consideration.


My PE R710 is not all that loud. The BayStack 5520 however is a howler.

ZFS doesn't require that much RAM if you tune it. It is 3TB for now. Next time I build a new one, it's going to be at least 8TB.

 

[sdifox]

ZFS doesn't require that much RAM if you tune it. It is 3TB for now. Next time I build a new one, it's going to be at least 8TB.

Err you can get 10 TB external drives. Stick it on your router and call it a day. Building freenas for 3TB is a waste of time

Hell you can buy two 4tb ssd for the same money as your build.

 

[Chikara]

Err you can get 10 TB external drives. Stick it on your router and call it a day. Building freenas for 3TB is a waste of time

Hell you can buy two 4tb ssd for the same money as your build.

Again, we have different tastes. I learned a lot by building a proper NAS with ECC RAM. It is fun, too.

 

[sdifox]

Again, we have different tastes. I learned a lot by building a proper NAS with ECC RAM. It is fun, too.

I would recommend an used server. It is a nice toy. You can play with freenas in a vm as long as you give it pci passtheough.


Example

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/372720520650

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/142834501985

 

[lopri]

OK so to follow up, the following combo does not work.

Gigabyte Aorus X570 Elite
Samsung 32GB ECC memory