Is ECC memory any use?

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 01:07:35 +0000,
  Timothy Murphy <tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> 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?
> 
> I have a feeling that disk errors are far more likely
> than RAM errors.
> Is that right?

A google search should turn up some pages on this. What I read suggests
it is worth getting. A bit flips were estimated to be on the order of
something like one a month (depending on memory size). And that single
bit flips were the most common type of corruption and that can be corrected
(not just detected) by ECC memory.

Whether or not it is worth it to you depends on what you are using the machine
for.