Received: from localhost (maia-1.hub.org [200.46.204.191]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 079B99FB732 for ; Fri, 25 May 2007 22:44:13 -0300 (ADT) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.191]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 90007-01 for ; Fri, 25 May 2007 22:44:00 -0300 (ADT) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.4 Received: from mail.emolecules.com (66-226-76-106.dedicated.abac.net [66.226.76.106]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 29C2A9FB720 for ; Fri, 25 May 2007 22:43:59 -0300 (ADT) Received: (qmail 4404 invoked by uid 2020); 25 May 2007 18:43:58 -0700 Received: from wsip-68-224-174-233.sd.sd.cox.net (HELO ?192.168.0.3?) (68.224.174.233) by 192.168.0.4 with SMTP; 25 May 2007 18:43:58 -0700 Message-ID: <4657912B.3000508@emolecules.com> Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 18:45:15 -0700 From: Craig James User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (X11/20070221) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org Subject: ECC RAM really needed? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200705/549 X-Sequence-Number: 24939 We're thinking of building some new servers. We bought some a while back that have ECC (error correcting) RAM, which is absurdly expensive compared to the same amount of non-ECC RAM. Does anyone have any real-life data about the error rate of non-ECC RAM, and whether it matters or not? In my long career, I've never once had a computer that corrupted memory, or at least I never knew if it did. ECC sound like a good idea, but is it solving a non-problem? Thanks, Craig