I think Andrew summed it up right, no one is saying I must use ECC, but I should use ECC. Also, my apologies, I missed your talk last week, I was hoping to make it, but had something come up. Thank you for sharing again. Looking over the cost of it, I'd need a bit of time to budget for ECC (I assume I'd need at least 8 gigs worth for zfs?), so that likely won't happen anytime soon. Based on what I've gathered, I will probably stick with a Linux software raid and my current backup scheme until I can make the leap to ECC or more likely a new box with ECC before jumping to zfs. I know even with a Linux software raid and no ecc there are risks, however, correct me if I'm wrong, the risk of a hosed raid over a zfs pool appears to be less (albeit I am getting less data integrity overall)? A lot of linux software raid wikis forums make no mention of ECC dependencies, which is interesting, as the with the cosmic ray issue, it is a factor. Linda, although I do off-site backups, I do worry about corruption hitting those, fortunately my backup provider does do snapshots and I utilize that feature :-) I use ArchLinux, and actually stick with latest stable kernel and have had lots of success with it running a software raid1 and serving up Samba, nfs, https, and sftp. There is a zfs repository which stays up to date for Arch, although I noticed zfs on linux only really gets updated once a year, according to zfsonlinux.org Also, I've played around with FreeNAS, it looks really cool and pretty, however I like the minimalist approach I get with Arch and setting everything up just the way I want it, and I've found security patching and building from source to be very efficient. FreeBSD itself would be an option, I've played with it before in addition to FreeNAS, however that would be a another new thing to learn as the syntax is occasionally different than Linux. It is on my list of things to immerse myself in, whenever I get around to it :-) Thanks for the suggestions everyone, -- Jeremy MountainJohnson Jeremy.MountainJohnson at gmail.com On Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 1:22 PM, Linda Kateley <lkateley at kateley.com> wrote: > I will almost always say, the only place i would use non-ecc is functional > test, no live data. > > I have only seen it happen probably 15-20 times in the last 10 years that i > have been working with system with zfs. Probably 1000's of installs.. but > when it happens, it really sucks. Whole pool unrecoverable. nothing you can > do. restore from backup might not even work because the corruption could > also live out there. > > I also would be really careful with the linux distros you use. the ubuntu's > 13+ seem to be more stable.. I am on the zfs on linux list and probably once > a month I see total pool failure or my datasets disappeared or some other > problems in the subject(I will say i don't read every email) > > I hate to sound like a shill for freebsd.. but the zfs has been in there > since 2005 and most of the holes have been plugged. ZFS on linux has been > used at jpl that same amount of time, but the "mass consumption" of zol has > been a shorter period of time. > > > > On 11/29/14, 10:29 AM, Andrew Berg wrote: >> >> On 2014.11.29 09:06, Jeremy MountainJohnson wrote: >>> >>> That said, I attended last years presentation on ZFS, and have even >>> played around a little with thumb drives and Linux on ZFS with no >>> issues. The server supports ECC, however I already purchased the RAM >>> for it as non-ECC and 16 gigs worth, so I'd hate to throw away that >>> investment to purchase more expensive ECC. Is it worth considering >>> even using ZFS on Linux with non-ECC? The presentation leaned toward >>> no, and that is the general consensus I'm seeing on forums. So, >>> perhaps stick to a software Linux raid6? >> >> No. Didn't I just dispel this silly myth a week ago on this list? Memory >> failure is going to ruin your day. It's that simple. Other software RAID >> systems and filesystems are NOT going to make bad memory suddenly start >> giving >> correct data again. In fact, they are mostly just going to hum along with >> corrupt data, oblivious to the problem (depending on the severity of the >> issues >> in RAM). ZFS has a fighting chance at saving some of your data, whereas >> others >> don't. If you are that concerned, go buy ECC RAM. Linda isn't saying >> "don't use >> ZFS", she's saying "do use ECC RAM". In the combination of bad RAM >> corrupting >> your data and ZFS trying to save it, ZFS is not the problem. >> >>> Based on a lot of recent tests, I'll probably go with Western Digital >>> drives for the cost savings and longevity, unless anyone has other >>> suggestions? >> >> I would suggest WD Reds unless performance is a big factor. Of "you can >> have >> cheap, reliable, or fast, pick two", they are cheap and reliable. IIRC, WD >> Blacks are good too, being reliable and fast. >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list