FreeBSDForums.ORG - Dedicated Servers & Hosting Discussions

[John R]

Hello I just found your forum and I am looking to buy some Server memory.
My system admin says we need ECC FB DIMM Server Memory, why is it so expensive? I just bought memory for my desktop and it was so much cheaper than the prices the local computer stores are quoting me for server memory. Is server memory just rebranded desktop RAM or is it really that much more special?
Any help on this issue would be cool.
JR

[Rice Rocket]

The reason server memory is more is due to a lots of factors, one being that they don't make as much server memory as regular RAM, but more importantly the Server RAM has error correcting ECC and is fully buffered FB this slows down the performance of the RAM a little but increases its reliability, the last thing you want is corrupted data on your server.

One of the advantages of regular memory is that server RAM in some cases can be Quad Channel so you can have better access to the RAM than Dual Channel. I just did a sever memory upgrade and now I have a Dual Xeon running 16 GB of ECC FB DIMM server memory in Quad Channel. When I did a memory speed test they performance of upgrading from dual channel to quad channel memory was huge! VERY AWESOME If your server motherboard supports four channels, I highly recommend buying enough RAM when you do your server memory upgrade to get quad channels. To do this you would need to populate four memory banks.

Peace!

[UberGeek]

Hello everyone, we have just added a great Server Memory section that lists new and used server memory from all over the world.
This should help you find some cheaper alternatives to buying FB Dimms at full retail. However, as with all used hardware you may not want it for your particular project.