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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.hawaii.edu!ames!usenet.kornet.nm.kr!usenet.hana.nm.kr!usenet.seri.re.kr!news.kreonet.re.kr!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!bcm.tmc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!news.physics.uiowa.edu!ljg From: ljg@space.physics.uiowa.edu (Larry Granroth) Subject: Re: Parity SIMMS really necessary? X-Nntp-Posting-Host: ljgpc.physics.uiowa.edu Message-ID: <DJ8wD5.4vA@sysadm.physics.uiowa.edu> Sender: news@sysadm.physics.uiowa.edu (News Administrator) Organization: The University of Iowa, Department of Physics and Astronomy X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] References: <49lbnr$4fq@interport.net> <49qabp$efi@zuul.nmti.com> <4a2fug$b0u@cnn.nas.nasa.gov> <4a7kbb$8uj@overload.lbl.gov> Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 02:03:04 GMT Lines: 11 Any common commercial memory is susceptible to cosmic ray or other statistical events that can flip a bit. Given the small cross section of the sensitive areas, this doesn't happen very often. In my experience, each of our Suns appear to experience isolated non-repeatable parity faults about once every two or three years. If your PC is rebooted a few times a day, the importance of these errors is less than if you have a BSD system that is up for months or years. The bottom line is that if you have an error, you don't want it to propagate, which is why parity (or ECC) is necessary. larry-granroth@uiowa.edu