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Comment by mixmastamyk | Hacker News Reader

I've been disappointed in linux filesystems and Intel hardware lately. Little integrity checking in ext4 and btrfs is still having growing pains. Recent search for a svelte laptop with ECC memory yielded nothing. Sheesh, wasn't this stuff invented like 30+ years ago?

I understand Intel is segmenting reliability into higher-priced business gear, but as a developer that depends on this stuff for their livelihood the current status quo is not acceptable.

Linux should have better options since profit margins are not an impediment.

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I have to agree, segmenting on ECC feels really outmoded these days. With Intel you basically need a Xeon even before you can start thinking about ECC, and that does limit your options somewhat. Luckily at least these days Intel is making mobile Xeons, so you can get ECC laptops from most major manufacturers (I checked Dell, HP and Fujitsu, and according to sibling comment Lenovo too).

It's the laptop manufacturers that are to blame. Check out the specs on this i3 with ecc support. http://ark.intel.com/products/90734/Intel-Core-i3-6100T-Proc...

Granted, that's still not a laptop CPU. But it's not a Xeon either.

The closest you will get that I know of is a Lenovo P50/P51. They have builds with Xeons with ECC.

But I remember when ECC memory dropped out of favor. I wish it had never happened.

all the new AMD chips have ECC by default which is exciting

we will see how their mobile chips stack up

Hasn't all "big" AMD CPUs supported ECC to some degree as long as the memory controller has been on the CPU? The real problem on that side has been motherboard support which has been afaik pretty much nonexistent.

All of the FX series CPUs supported ECC memory (albeit the unbuffered kind). As you said, finding a compatible motherboard was a pain. All the ones I found used the massively power hungry 990FX-A chipset. But I did get one, and my home NAS uses an FX-8350. Kind of scary getting an automated email every week or so about a bit flip that would have otherwise been silent corruption on my home desktop.

A bit flip every week is way higher than it should be.

Here is a decent build that I recently did for my home server: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/any-help-with-m...

It uses the Intel G4560 which supports ECC, and is very inexpensive. It's low power too.

Dell Precision 5520 with a Xeon supports ECC memory (up to 64G DDR4) and it's the same size as an XPS.

Ironic, that is the laptop I ended up getting, but because I didn't want a hot, power-sucking laptop I got a lower-speed i5 instead.

Not to mention that no one could tell me if you could install ECC memory or if it would be used by the firmware if it even worked at all.

Are you sure about the 64GB? As far as I see it only has two slots, and I can only configure it with 32 GB.

I'm running one right now with 64G of DDR4 ECC.

Not low power though, 1.3v each 32G DIMM.

The CPU supports it but I still don't see the option to actually configure it with ECC memory (which has been keeping me from buying one for quite a while now).

I have one with ECC memory that's seen my archlinux.

I had to buy the memory myself but I was looking for "better" memory anyway.

So you bought it with 8GB non-ECC, plugged in 2* 32GB ECC Dimms and it works?

I can't find those DIMMs, 16GB DIMMs are the biggest I can find.

Yep, I think I'm using memory that is not commercially available although I didn't know it before.

I can't find them online.

For reference they're Samsung branded, I can take a photo if you like; you can see the "width" of the channel in linux which tells you if you're using ECC or not.

Wow, where did you get them? Is it an engineering sample?

Are you absolutely positive that ECC is functional? What memory did you opt for? Does this void warranty?

Memory upgrades on this line to not void warranty; however it seems my exact memory is not commercially available (yet).

I can see the full "width" in linux, which indicates that the OS can see it.

Start from here. www.dell.com/developers

Holy shit, Ubuntu is $101 cheaper than Windows! It's finally possible to escape from the "Windows is cheaper than Linux because of crapware" quagmire.

Not sure what you're getting at. Security vulnerability?

Sorry, wrong link. www.dell.com/developers. Updated the parent too.

Still don't see ECC there on the 5520.

Search for ECC on that page. Some of them do. It is possible that their SKUs change with time. Currently, 3520, 7510 and 7710 show ECC support. Dell's site is quite terrible for navigation. You may have to spend some time to find the right model.

The point was to have the compact XPS-like casing. All those other ones are bulky. So I'd have to go with replacing the RAM myself... I really don't get why this configuration option is missing here.

It's not available for that model, but the 3520, 7520, 7720, 7510 and 7710 all offer ECC RAM as an option.

See my reply to the other comment pointing this out.

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