[ale] call me stupid but.......

[Jordi S. Bunster]

7/2/02 2:30:40 AM, Stephen Turner <artic_knight at yahoo.com> wrote:

>whats ecc ram? ive been looking at ddr, i think what i got is 2100
>(266mhz) but whats this ecc ddr ram? whats ecc? and where do i find out
>about such terms that i might not know of just yet?

ECC stands for Error Checking Code, As far as I can remember. It can detect almost any single bit 
error per page in your data, and some two bit ones, and correct it at the hardware level, before 
the OS (or microprocessor, for that matter) even touches the data.

Most serious UNIX servers ship with ECC RAM. It may be more expensive, but it really gives you 
and extra bit of reliability depending on your needs. Some architectures (anyone, please correct 
me on these, potentially wrong statement) only allow ECC RAM, like the workstations from Sun, for 
example.

If you're interested in buying it, avoid "ECC compatible" memory. As Eric says, this is the 
marketing term for "We're too cheap to implement ECC". :)

 -- Jordi




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