5 ms·

Sucks that that there's no ECC-RAM model. A phone-sized x86 slab, as opposed to those impractical mini-PC/Mini-Mac boxes, that one could carry around and connec

Sucks that that there's no ECC-RAM model. A phone-sized x86 slab, as opposed to those impractical mini-PC/Mini-Mac boxes, that one could carry around and connect to a powerbank of similar size, and/or various types of screens (including a smartphone itself), would make for a great ultramobile setup.

snvzz 11mo ago
I like to pretend options without ECC simply do not exist. (i.e. as it should be) It shortens the list of options, making choices much easier.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
zokier 11mo ago
If you want relatively small low-power box with ECC, checkout Asustor AS6804T. It is nominally a NAS but really you can use it for anything you want, it is just an x86-64 server with some disk bays. You also get nice 2x10GbE, which is rare with these minipcs
- LTL_FTC 11mo ago
  If it had a a few more cores, something like this would make for a great node in a distributed system like k8s or ceph for a homelab. At the asking price, however, one could also cross shop an HP micro server gen11.
  - antonkochubey 11mo ago
    Odroid H4 Ultra? It has 8 Gracemont cores that can stay boosted for quite a long time, and supports in-band ECC. 4x SATA too for those who care.
- hollerith 11mo ago
  But the price of that is $1200, which is about 5 times the price of the average N150 mini PC.
  - tbyehl 11mo ago
    Minisforum N5 Pro AI NAS isn't substantially cheaper but the performance matches the price premium over a potato PC. Tho DDR5 ECC SO-DIMMs are obscenely expensive right now.
transpute 11mo ago
Bring back the Intel Compute Stick? https://liliputing.com/this-cheap-intel-n150-mini-pc-is-smaller-than-a-phone-has-two-hdmi-ports-ethernet-and-an-m-2-slot-for-storage/ https://liliputing.com/this-cheap-intel-n150-mini-pc-is-smal... Arm RK3399 SoC is blob free and some (Pinephone Pro, N4S, Chrome tablet) devices are small enough for sidecar usage.
antonkochubey 11mo ago
Odroid H4 family (H4, H4 Plus, H4 Ultra) supports in-band ECC, which supports one-bit error correction and two-bit error detection. And the 8-core model is just $220 (+case, +heatsink/fan, +shipping, but oh well)
- esseph 11mo ago
  Is the kernel support for those still awful or has it gotten better? Its been a long time since I had an odroid... C1 I think
  - elcritch 11mo ago
    The Odroid H4 is an amd65 board like the N150 NUC. So the kernel should be standard amd64.
  - antonkochubey 11mo ago
    It has UEFI and runs mainline Linux, it's an Intel reference design for Alder Lake-N with a couple additions (SATA controller is 3rd party for example)
userbinator 11mo ago
How many times do you think ECC RAM has caught an error? Online anecdotes I've found indicate almost no one experiences regularly corrected errors that weren't due to imminently failing hardware.
- karlgkk 11mo ago
  Fun fact: DDR6 contains built in ECC by default. RAM sizes are getting so large it's causing issues in the field and also issues with yields So, the industry thinks its a problem.
  - userbinator 11mo ago
    In other words, the industry has gone to shit as usual, starting with rowhammer. But my question still stands.
  - toast0 11mo ago
    DDR5 has built in ECC too. Unfortunately, AFAIK there's no error reporting mechanism, so while it should reduce error rates, it likely increases error severity. Assuming no bitflips between the ram module and the cpu, ECC on the ram corrects any single bitflips, but multiple flips are uncorrectable and must pass through, so any incorrect value the cpu gets has multiple bitflips.
- toast0 11mo ago
  I've managed a couple thousand servers with ECC. The vast majority had zero reported errors the whole life. Of those that reported errors, there were a few categories: Some reported a couple errors a day for months (maybe years?) but worked fine. Some ramped up error counts over hours or days. Some went from zero to lots in one step. A few managed to hit uncorrectable errors; sometimes just once. For a small number of correctable errors (< 10/day), there was no action needed, or one uncorrectable, but that kind of failure is what drives people without ECC crazy; some of the machines that hit an uncorrectable only did it once and were fine. The other ones we'd replace ram for. A small number of daily errors or a single uncorrectable were less common than the ones that got their ram swapped. I don't know for sure if uncorrectables correlated with many correctable errors, because correctable errors were only reported hourly ... if it was a step change to bad ram, it's likely to halt before a reporting interval, so no report. Unless the correctables were several a second, the impact of corrections isn't obvious.

snvzz 11mo ago

I like to pretend options without ECC simply do not exist. (i.e. as it should be) It shortens the list of options, making choices much easier.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

zokier 11mo ago

If you want relatively small low-power box with ECC, checkout Asustor AS6804T. It is nominally a NAS but really you can use it for anything you want, it is just an x86-64 server with some disk bays. You also get nice 2x10GbE, which is rare with these minipcs

LTL_FTC 11mo ago
If it had a a few more cores, something like this would make for a great node in a distributed system like k8s or ceph for a homelab. At the asking price, however, one could also cross shop an HP micro server gen11.
- antonkochubey 11mo ago
  Odroid H4 Ultra? It has 8 Gracemont cores that can stay boosted for quite a long time, and supports in-band ECC. 4x SATA too for those who care.
hollerith 11mo ago
But the price of that is $1200, which is about 5 times the price of the average N150 mini PC.
- tbyehl 11mo ago
  Minisforum N5 Pro AI NAS isn't substantially cheaper but the performance matches the price premium over a potato PC. Tho DDR5 ECC SO-DIMMs are obscenely expensive right now.

transpute 11mo ago

Bring back the Intel Compute Stick? https://liliputing.com/this-cheap-intel-n150-mini-pc-is-smaller-than-a-phone-has-two-hdmi-ports-ethernet-and-an-m-2-slot-for-storage/ https://liliputing.com/this-cheap-intel-n150-mini-pc-is-smal... Arm RK3399 SoC is blob free and some (Pinephone Pro, N4S, Chrome tablet) devices are small enough for sidecar usage.

antonkochubey 11mo ago

Odroid H4 family (H4, H4 Plus, H4 Ultra) supports in-band ECC, which supports one-bit error correction and two-bit error detection. And the 8-core model is just $220 (+case, +heatsink/fan, +shipping, but oh well)

esseph 11mo ago
Is the kernel support for those still awful or has it gotten better? Its been a long time since I had an odroid... C1 I think
- elcritch 11mo ago
  The Odroid H4 is an amd65 board like the N150 NUC. So the kernel should be standard amd64.
- antonkochubey 11mo ago
  It has UEFI and runs mainline Linux, it's an Intel reference design for Alder Lake-N with a couple additions (SATA controller is 3rd party for example)

userbinator 11mo ago

How many times do you think ECC RAM has caught an error? Online anecdotes I've found indicate almost no one experiences regularly corrected errors that weren't due to imminently failing hardware.

karlgkk 11mo ago
Fun fact: DDR6 contains built in ECC by default. RAM sizes are getting so large it's causing issues in the field and also issues with yields So, the industry thinks its a problem.
- userbinator 11mo ago
  In other words, the industry has gone to shit as usual, starting with rowhammer. But my question still stands.
- toast0 11mo ago
  DDR5 has built in ECC too. Unfortunately, AFAIK there's no error reporting mechanism, so while it should reduce error rates, it likely increases error severity. Assuming no bitflips between the ram module and the cpu, ECC on the ram corrects any single bitflips, but multiple flips are uncorrectable and must pass through, so any incorrect value the cpu gets has multiple bitflips.
toast0 11mo ago
I've managed a couple thousand servers with ECC. The vast majority had zero reported errors the whole life. Of those that reported errors, there were a few categories: Some reported a couple errors a day for months (maybe years?) but worked fine. Some ramped up error counts over hours or days. Some went from zero to lots in one step. A few managed to hit uncorrectable errors; sometimes just once. For a small number of correctable errors (< 10/day), there was no action needed, or one uncorrectable, but that kind of failure is what drives people without ECC crazy; some of the machines that hit an uncorrectable only did it once and were fine. The other ones we'd replace ram for. A small number of daily errors or a single uncorrectable were less common than the ones that got their ram swapped. I don't know for sure if uncorrectables correlated with many correctable errors, because correctable errors were only reported hourly ... if it was a step change to bad ram, it's likely to halt before a reporting interval, so no report. Unless the correctables were several a second, the impact of corrections isn't obvious.