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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.idt.net!mr.net!news.mid.net!news.cjnetworks.com!usenet From: tdsmith@topeka.cjnetworks.com Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.hardware Subject: Re: Request for advice Date: 7 Dec 1996 03:12:50 GMT Organization: Capital Journal Networks Lines: 57 Distribution: world Message-ID: <58anbi$ap1@topeka.cjnetworks.com> References: <va420d4suai.fsf@jay.dpmms.cam.ac.uk> <32A774B0.5E02@rpi.edu> <588knu$8kq@rznews.rrze.uni-erlangen.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: port27.cjnetworks.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Newsreader: <QVT/News ver. 4.0> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:32160 comp.os.linux.hardware:58653 In article <588knu$8kq@rznews.rrze.uni-erlangen.de>, niemann@cip.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de (Hartmut Niemann) writes: >Andrew Dickinson <dickia@rpi.edu> writes: > >>Gareth McCaughan wrote: >>> >>> - Memory. My guess is that I could survive uncomfortably >>> with 16Mb and would be reasonably comfortable with 32. >>> With prices where they are at the moment, this doesn't >>> seem a sensible corner to cut. Right? >>> > >>Get 32 MB... Linux sucks up lots of memory. I used to run in with 8Mb, actually, but it was >>really slow. I upgraded to 16 and it still wasn't particullarly fast. I'd cut corners in >>other places before skimping on the memory. > >Yes. 16 seems a reasonable miniumum, 32 is comfortable and fast. > >>> - Memory again. If I don't get parity memory, am I really >>> seriously going to regret it? How common are memory errors >>> these days? >>> >>Rare, I think. If there were lives at stake, I would get parity. For general use, I don't >>think it matters -- I think the failure rate of your system due to alpha particles hitting >>DRAM is far lower than the failure rate of other things in your system... > >As no OS yet can deal with parity errors ... not needed (AFAIK). Some OSs deal rather nicely with parity errors. With hardware, the OS may not ever see it. If I've read the docs correctly, the 430HX chipset does ECC in hardware if parity DRAM is installed. I've enabled ECC on my Tyan Tomcat I, so far to no ill effect. [snip] I think the people running without parity are in for a rude awakening in a very short time. We're approaching a very active period in the 44-year sunspot cycle and the added radiation bath we'll take will very likely negatively effect everything that runs on electricity. From what I've read in comp.risks, the last time we went through this we suffered from things such as induced voltage in pipelines and waveform fluctuation in high tension power lines (including a daylong power outage in Ontario in 1957). There has been an amazing expansion in the use and type of technology in the last 40 years, the effect on which from high-intensity sunspots isn't really known. The 11- and 22-year periods have been known to cause radio and television interference and have troubled even ATC systems and satellite communications. Gird for the worst. I, for one, would rather have the system crash with a parity error than happily write bad data to disk without telling me. How important is that extra $1/MB, anyway? Troy Smith