Is ECC memory any use?

[John Summerfield]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
> John Summerfield wrote:
> 
>>> I'm getting memory for a very old (P2B-LS) Asus motherboard,
>>> and I see I can get ECC memory for some 20% more.
>>>
>>> Is there any point in getting this?
>>> I see there is quite a lot of work
>>> in getting ECC testing incorporated into the Linux kernel.
>>> But even if it were there, would it be very valuable?
>> Whether to use ECC ram depends on the mobo; some support it, some don't.
>>
>> I suspect that mobo supports 384 Mbytes of SDRAM, probably no faster
>> than PC-100 (but PC-133 works fine); it might not even require it that
>> fast.
> 
> Actually this 450MHz PIII motherboard supports 1GB of ECC PC100 RAM.

I had a p2l (LX chipset) board back when PII was new. Memory is fading 
into the mists of tine:-(




>  
>> I've just been to a computer auction; I suspect that wouldn't even
>> attract a bid. I'm not sure that there was anything less than a 1.7 Ghz
>> PIV. <checks>
>> There were two COMPAQ DESKPRO Pentium IIIs, they went for $AU60+10%
>> buyers' premium +10% GST.
> 
> Well, I'm not planning on selling this machine.

I was targeting its value in terms of replacement cost; a cheapish used 
Pentium IV has more life expectancy than an aged Pentium II (or III). 
That and whether it's sensible to throw more money at such a dated box;


> But your comment does raise a point I've often wondered about -
> is CPU speed really that important, if one is not a gamer or similar?
> 
> This machine is actually only used as a server,
> serving (externally) httpd, mysql, php and openldap.
> As far as I can see, the slow CPU speed of the machine
> has never had the slightest deleterious effect.
> The bottleneck in all cases has been the speed of my ADSL connection
> (4Mb/s download, according to my ISP, but under 2Mb/s in practice).
> 
> So I do genuinely wonder - does CPU speed matter at all, in such a case?

No, but reliability might. If you chose to serve stuff internally, a 
faster disk drive (up to 60 Mbytes/sec) might interest you:-) It won't 
go anything like that fast in that box, and I'm not sure whether an 
LBA48 drive would work with it. A small one probably would.

fwiw it's most likely to fail after a period of being turned off.


If you don't have a performance problem, adding RAM won't help.
If you do, faster everything probably will, without much thought beyond 
brand and budget.

You didn't say how much RAM; it would be interesting to price it and 
compare with a low-end server from HP, Dell & Lenovo/IBM (or anyone 
else). the low-end server may come with guarantee and on-site support. 
New features such as virtualisation may be attractive too.

> 
> This Asus motherboard has been remarkably resilient 
> during its long (9 1/2 years) life.
> The CMOS battery expired (and was replaced) about 3 years ago;
> and two SCSI disks have gently ended their lives,
> in each case giving me due warning of their coming demise.
> 
>> The question isn't so much whether it can do a useful job, as for how
>> long it will do so.
> 
> I have often thought of replacing it, as I said.
> But is there any real reason to do so?

Depends on the uncertain (and unplanned) time if its demise and the 
certain (and planned) time of its replacement.

I took a couple of weeks recently visiting daughters in Victoria, and at 
the end of the first week there was a power failure here, and part of my 
network didn't come back up. Not being able to connect to my desktop was 
inconvenient.

When I got back I found the smoke had escaped from a switch and my 
office ponged seriously for weeks after.

Whether a newer switch (it was a moderately serous rack-mount affair) 
would have survived is moot, but having older gear is a bigger 
invitation to such inconveniences.

-- 

Cheers
John

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