How likely is it to get corruptions on ZFS without ECC?

[Chikara]

Right now, everything is protected by ZFS RAID1 and ECC RAM with periodical ZFS scrubs.

A few years ago, I used ext4 and remember spotting a few filesystem corruptions from unknown causes. Those corruptions were in shared libraries and caused my system to misbehave.
Fortunately, I just had to reinstall packages that contained corrupted shared libraries.
But, there could have been more bitrots in non-critical areas.

How likely is it to get corruptions on ZFS in systems without ECC?

 

[aigomorla]

ECC is only as good as your weakest link.

Meaning if you have ECC writing to a ECC, then its fairly secure.

However if you have non-ECC writing to ECC, then your ECC is sort of pointless / moot, because your write source can be corrupted.

As for how likely is corruptions.... it would depend on a lot of factors like how compressed is your data, and how big it is.
If your going copying photos and movies around, i don't see that big of a concern.
If your writing large packets of highly compressed data, well, how mission critical is it? If its very mission critical, then your going to need to change your workstations.

 

[Chikara]

Meaning if you have ECC writing to a ECC, then its fairly secure.

What do you mean when you say "ECC writing to ECC"? ECC RAM writing to ECC storage?

Anyway, everything is protected in ZFS mirror with ECC RAM on my desktop computer. ZFS scrub checks and corrects and reports filesystem corruptions every week.

 

[VirtualLarry]

reports filesystem corruptions every week.

Sounds like some defective hardware in the chain.

 

[Chikara]

Sounds like some defective hardware in the chain.

It doesn't actually report file system corruptions every week. It reports corruptions when there are corruptions. Corruptions are rare.
I should say it reports the status of filesystem corruptions every week.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Then, you meant to say, "reports ON filesystem corruption every week".

 

[Chikara]

Then, you meant to say, "reports ON filesystem corruption every week".

I bootstrapped my english where nobody speaks english. Everyone in the next few hundred kilometers doesn't speak english to me. I may not get nuances right.

 

[aigomorla]

What do you mean when you say "ECC writing to ECC"? ECC RAM writing to ECC storage?

Anyway, everything is protedted in ZFS mirror with ECC RAM on my desktop computer. ZFS scrub checks and corrects and reports filesystem corruptions every week.

PC1 -> needs to have ECC
PC2 -> has no ECC
NAS -> Needs ECC.

PC1-> Writes to NAS ECC protected chain.
PC2-> Writes to NAS ECC is sort of pointless IMO, as PC2 can write errors which NAS will think is valid.

If your entire chain is not ECC'd then all the hype about the NAS requiring ECC is sort of moot, as the data being written can be corputed to begin with and ECC wont save you anyhow.

If your chain is entirely ECC, then the data is protected by ECC, and can be worthwhile as well as valid.

 

[Chikara]

If your chain is entirely ECC, then the data is protected by ECC, and can be worthwhile as well as valid.

Every machine of mine that stores critical data is protected by ECC.
But, the internet is not entirely protected by ECC. What if torrent segments are sent from a machine without ECC?
Do routers have ECC?

Why do manufacturers not enable ECC in every RAM module and every motherboard they sell? Almost every SSD has ECC built in.