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I really hope someone could figure it out if Mac mini with the i3-8100B CPU can work with ECC memory. According to Intel the CPU is ECC-capable, but I’m not sur
by riobard 8y ago
I really hope someone could figure it out if Mac mini with the i3-8100B CPU can work with ECC memory. According to Intel the CPU is ECC-capable, but I’m not sure about the mobo. If it works with ECC, it would be a truly mini Mac Pro.
The higher-end configs with i5 and i7 CPU are not ECC-capable, only the entry-level i3 CPU is ECC-capable.
- sneak 8y agoWhat is your use case where ECC ram is that important?
- riobard 8y agoI plan to ditch NAS and just connect external storage directly to the mini, and it needs to run 24/7. ECC should give me better reliability, no?
- jamiek88 8y agoYeah, but for a NAS it’s overkill in my opinion. You’re more likely to run into on disk than in RAM issues with silent bitrot depending on OS and FS even then pretty rare but if your NAS is huge becomes more likely just law of averages.
- riobard 8y agoBit rot on cold storage is at least detectable if using filesystem with checksumming (e.g. ZFS). I’m not aware of any solutions to detect bit rot in RAM other than ECC.
- post_break 8y agoI have done this for 6 years, mini with two drobos connected to it running plex 24x7. No issues without ECC ram. I have since switched to a synology because it's easier to manage and won't have bit rot.
- riobard 8y agoTo clarify, I’m more concerned about silent data corruption instead of crashing. Why does Synology not have bit rot? Becuase of ZFS? I thought ECC memory is almost required for ZFS?
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 8y agoThere is nothing special about ZFS that makes it require ECC. It's a myth. See: http://jrs-s.net/2015/02/03/will-zfs-and-non-ecc-ram-kill-your-data/ http://jrs-s.net/2015/02/03/will-zfs-and-non-ecc-ram-kill-yo...
- riobard 8y agoGood point. Thanks! :)
- kalleboo 8y agoFWIW Synology uses BTRFS, not ZFS
- vbezhenar 8y agoWhat's a good and ergonomic way to attach something like 4-6 HDDs? I'm using HP Microserver Gen8 and it's a wonderful machine but it has its drawbacks. I'm thinking about replacing it, but it's hard to find something of its size and compatible with enough HDDs. Also the major issue is that I've heard about problems booting Linux on recent macs, but probably it'll be resolved soon.
- AceJohnny2 8y agoECC is starting to show up inside the RAM chips themselves. Don't know if it's reached consumer devices like this Mac Mini though. Edit: I mean the ECC logic is self-contained inside the module, with no support requirements on the host CPU.