[Bjoern]

Here is a well balanced explanation why ECC-RAM. That being said, if the RAM is the weakest link it doesn't matter what underlying FS is used.

https://pthree.org/2013/12/10/zfs-administration-appendix-c-...

In my experience 16GB is only needed if you want to run Deduplication.

[wtallis]

> "if the RAM is the weakest link it doesn't matter what underlying FS is used"

When is this ever the case, though? Even non-ECC RAM is more reliable than hard drives except when a RAM chip has died, which most ECC systems don't handle well either. Full chipkill capability is pretty rare.

[rodgerd]

As I understand the reasoning, it's that ZFS checksumming creates a risk of false positives where non-checksumming filesystems wouldn't have them. So without ECC RAM you're trading the risk of losing data to your IO chain for the risk of losing data to increased RAM activity. With ECC RAM it's an unambiguous win.