Xeon ECC hard ware pros? Help

[Tony_Scarpelli]

I have almost always built small servers with non Xeon Intel cpu's and non ECC ram unless buying a package from HP, Dell, Compaq or building a Duel cpu system. When I have built a few duel cpu systems I have used Xeon and ECC. I guess I assumed they had to be matched.

Tonight I was looking up a quad core for an existing 3000 chipset server a new client has Xeon x3210 and Intel said it doesn't support ECC.

This had me confused as I thought you had to match ECC with Xeon. Now I am wondering if you do not need to use it.

Just because a motherboard supports ECC does that mean it doesn't support non ECC ram?

I guess I can swap it around in the office, I have a couple of xeon play servers but I thought I would see if there were any easy answers first.

What say you?

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

I did some research and apparently most motherboards that support ECC ram will also support non ECC memory. Also you do not require ECC when using Xeon processors. They tend to be pared together.

The error rate for normal ram is 1 soft error in about 6-24 months. This leads me to conclude that for a simple small workgroup file server or peer server going with non ECC ram wouldn't be an issue.

Since ECC is about $165 for 2x2 or 4 Gb of memory, and $40 buys non ECC ram this could be a significant savings when building small workgroup/peer servers.

ECC memory also takes a 15% performance hit/degradation over non ecc ram so speeds will be slower. I can see this is important for running a application like banking atm's but hardly important on saving and retrieving files. The software confirms the correct write and reads of software so that corrupt data is not recorded.

 

[AlbuquerqueCSA]

ECC memory

ECC memory and xeon do NOT have to be used together... you can have a xeon processor and standard memory.

in most small business situations, non ECC memory will be just fine. one of the only things that you must take in to consideration is that you CANNOT mix them in the same machine. So if you have a box that you want to upgrade the memory on just be sure to verify the type you are using before you order you memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory

Hope this helps.