What benefit do server CPUs have?

Associate
Joined
20 Feb 2009
Posts
2,033
Location
Rugby
I currently run an unraid server, with a few VMs & dockers. It's currently run on a Dell T20 (Intel Xeon E3-1225, with 28GB ECC RAM)

It's getting a little old and I'm starting to notice it not quite being a capable as it once was, so I'm thinking of upgrading. Would I see any benefit for upgrading to another server CPU, or should I just go with a desktop CPU (e.g. a Ryzen) based system?
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Apr 2014
Posts
2,585
Location
East Sussex
Ryzen is fine for home servers - you can even find boards that support ECC with it. I wouldn't bother with ECC for a media server - just keep good backups of your data if your really worried about it
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Jan 2006
Posts
3,091
Location
Norwich
Remote management & multiple NICs are the other major thing you'll find on server level boards.

Personally, I wouldn't run anything storing important data without ECC & a VM always gets a dedicated physical NIC if it's doing anything remotely intensive.

In your case, as you've had to ask, I suspect you probably don't need these :)
 
Associate
Joined
18 Aug 2020
Posts
144
Location
Watford, UK
28GB of RAM?? That's weird number for 'few VM's', so assuming you have 128GB and VM's needs to run 24/7..
In which case I would use ECC.
If you run home lab and VM's are not 'production' loads I would not be bothered with ECC

EDIT:
maybe I will rephrase it:
if VM's are running for external users and must be 24/7, then ECC
if you run them to satisfy 'internal' users and can manage expectations in terms of services availability, then there's no point in ECC - invest in faster CPU

It's all down to use case and we don't know workload you put into VM's, their need for 99,99% availability etc..
 
Last edited:
Associate
OP
Joined
20 Feb 2009
Posts
2,033
Location
Rugby
Ryzen is fine for home servers - you can even find boards that support ECC with it. I wouldn't bother with ECC for a media server - just keep good backups of your data if your really worried about it

The only non-replaceable data on there is photos I take (generally holidays/personal events etc), but I back those up to the cloud too anyway.

I think my biggest issue, is I don't fully understand the actual effect ECC has, and therefore can't decide on the risk. I get that it's to protect from memory bit errors, but what would the error actually cause & how often are they? For example, would the error merely cause a slight system slowdown, or could it cause permanent damage to the data being processed (I'm thinking the latter is less likely, as if it was, surely desktop PCs would use ECC too).

Remote management & multiple NICs are the other major thing you'll find on server level boards.

Personally, I wouldn't run anything storing important data without ECC & a VM always gets a dedicated physical NIC if it's doing anything remotely intensive.

In your case, as you've had to ask, I suspect you probably don't need these :)

I already have a separate dual NIC (PCI-E) in the server, so I'm not too worried about choosing a server board to have it built in.
As you've suggested, I'm pretty sure a desktop setup would work fine, I just like making fully informed decisions :D

28GB of RAM?? That's weird number for 'few VM's', so assuming you have 128GB and VM's needs to run 24/7..
In which case I would use ECC.
If you run home lab and VM's are not 'production' loads I would not be bothered with ECC
28GB is a little odd, but it's correct. The server came with a 4GB stick, and I managed to get my hands on 3 sticks of 8GB RAM to add to it (the T20 requires un-buffered ECC, which is fairly rare & expensive when I was looking, so I took what I could get). I generally run at ~40% usage, raising a bit at times. The VMs are production as far as they fulfil functions I use, rather than for tinkering, but aren't particularly critical, although generally run 24/7 for convenience.

EDIT: Just realised 28GB is incorrect (and I didn't notice my maths was useless). I have 28GB "usable" according to unraid, which is what I normally see, and therefore what got stuck in my head. I have 32GB actually installed.
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
18 Aug 2020
Posts
144
Location
Watford, UK
Then non-ECC. ECC is for mission-critical servers where data reliability to last bit is crucial. Home setup can crash once a blue moon and no major loss of data will occur.
And if you have backups then no point in costly ECC
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Apr 2014
Posts
2,585
Location
East Sussex
ECC is letting you know if any bits get flipped in your memory - and then potentially correcting them.

If I was hosting something where data integrity really mattered then it's worth considering - but often there will be other things going on in your system to check what data is being passed around. E.G most apps are written to handle errors and so memory errors will not always result in data loss or a crash

ECC could be more valuable if doing a lot of scientific calculations where precision is vital - particularly on GPUs (one of the reason Quadro card have ECC and most consumer GPUs don't).

Theres quite a large group of people who advocate ECC for systems using ZFS - which kinda makes some sense when you read the reasoning (potential pool loss). For the small amount extra it cost to add ECC to my NAS I thought I should - as despite reading loads of stuff on ECC and ZFS I couldn't decide who was right and didn't want to risk it.

For real servers doing real work I would always specify ECC - as you want to at least be aware of your error rate in production, and data integrity matters more I think in a proper environment, and tbh its pretty difficult to buy a server that doesn't have ECC.
We have some apps at work for example that generate and validate DRM keys at high volume - we had a server with a faulty DIMM and it had a much higher failure rate when validating keys than any other server we have (which is when we realised how much ECC could really matter for certain workloads) - in this case one DIMM of 18 was faulty, without ECC I'm not sure we would have had enough to go on to figure it out (as we were only seeing a 1% transaction failure on that box - 0.01 on the rest of the hosts!)

Edit - this is probably the most comprehensive public study I found regarding ECC (bit old but still very relavent): https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&s...FjAAegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw0VLOHjiWpZRXdIFbj9Sgtj

Edit2: the title of that paper above is: "DRAM Errors in the Wild: A Large-Scale Field Study - Google Research"
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
20 Jun 2011
Posts
3,673
Location
Livingston
I have an Intel Xeon 2673v4 in my server. It’s an unlisted CPU but works great with the ASUS X99 WS/IPMI and RDIMM ECC.

Bought the CPU for less than £400 and paid £65 per 32GB stick. 128GB for £260 - If you dig around enough there are great deals to be had. Used server ECC is great for maxing out board capacity on the cheap.
 
Associate
Joined
30 Apr 2014
Posts
339
Location
The Matrix
You can put faster cpu's in your Dell T20 my go to cpu for it is the Xeon E3-1245 v3, 4 cores 8 threads @ 3.4 GHz up to 3.8 GHz on boost, its a noticeable performance increase in most cases, you can use the standard heat-sink and fan. You can pick them up on the bay for about £65 upwards
 
Back
Top Bottom