3 ms·
Bit-flips are a lot more common than people think as are read errors on drives. Surprisingly, usually a bit flipping here or there doesn't cause any real proble
by Volundr 6y ago
Bit-flips are a lot more common than people think as are read errors on drives. Surprisingly, usually a bit flipping here or there doesn't cause any real problems so they tend to go unnoticed. If your working with TBs of data using a checksumming filesystem like ZFS of BTRFS would certainly be recommended, but you should ALSO make sure your using ECC RAM. Checking the integrity of the data as it comes off the disk doesn't do you much good if a bit then flips while it's in memory.
- oarsinsync 6y agoTo emphasise, using ECC RAM is another step that can be used to increase the integrity of your data. It’s like security - it’s done in layers. Using a checksumming filesystem without ECC RAM is an improvement on not using a checksumming filesystem at all. Do not consider ECC RAM to be a requirement for ZFS / BTRFS. It does add another layer of improvement though, so if you can, you should! And even if you can’t, and even if you can’t provide the redundancy to enable bitflips to be resolved, still use a checksumming filesystem if you can!
- zionic 6y agoDDR5 mainstreaming ECC RAM as the default is super exciting!