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From: Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org>
To: "William A. Mahaffey III" <wam@hiwaay.net>
Cc: FreeBSD Questions !!!! <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: upgrade to 10.3R ....
References: <3d09a931-73f8-65d0-588a-70a57c812e85@hiwaay.net>
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 15:50:30 -0400
In-Reply-To: <3d09a931-73f8-65d0-588a-70a57c812e85@hiwaay.net> (William
 A. Mahaffey, III's message of "Wed, 28 Sep 2016 10:26:44 -0453.75")
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"William A. Mahaffey III" <wam@hiwaay.net> writes:

> are many online URLs with dire warnings about using ZFS & non-ECC RAM
> causing data corruption (this box is a commodity desktop w/ non-ECC

> 1. Are these concerns valid, i.e. founded in fact ?

Sure. When you get uncorrected bit flips, you can end up corrupting your
data or even the filesystem. That isn't unique to ZFS, of course.

If the data integrity guarantees aren't the deciding reason you're using
ZFS, then this isn't an issue. Some people use ZFS on laptops, for
example, for other features rather than data integrity (most commonly,
compression).

> 2. If so, should this be mentioned in the wiki or website somewhere ?

I wouldn't bother. "ECC memory reduces data corruption" is right up
there with "the computer will run most effectively when powered up."