Everyone hates it when their computer crashes, reboots randomly, or shows the dreaded blue screen of death. For the average user, though, this isn't really the end of the world. But some systems, like cloud servers or supercomputers, rely on being operational for 24 hours a day.
And a fatal crash could mean the loss of data, service outages, or cost the company millions of dollars. But for some IT professionals, this may seem like a catastrophic server outage is actually the end of the world. The likelihood of it happening... thanks to technologies like ECC memory, can actually be quite slim.
ECC memory is a term you've probably heard floating around our channel before, but what does it really mean? ECC stands for error correcting code, and the principle behind it, using mathematical methods to check data for errors quickly, has actually been around since about 150 BC, when Jewish scribes developed a process in which they looked at the number of words in a page or line to quickly determine if there were transcription errors. ECC memory works much the same way, as it can quickly check and correct for the most common types of data corruption, which often are the cause of crashes and data loss. Okay, so why is this so important? Well, the more that we use cloud services and virtual machines for massive calculations and computing means servers are not only important to large corporations, but also to the average consumer.
Take your Dropbox or iCloud account for instance. The servers which store your precious data rely on ECC memory to prevent memory failures, which may otherwise leave your data inaccessible or worse, lost altogether. Many things like electrical, magnetic, or even cosmic interference can cause a single bit whose value is either 1 or 0 to spontaneously flip to the opposite state.
As you may know, each byte in your memory is made up of 8 bits, which in the case of your computers, native software language might represent a letter or a number. If a single bit is switched to its opposite position, the result might be garbled data, and if this byte is critical to a system's operation, it can cause a crash or a failure. ECC memory corrects for this by first performing what is called parity checking, which involves storing an extra parity bit that represents the sum of all the ones in an 8-bit group.
The result of this is either an odd or even number, 1 or 0. If the sum doesn't match up with the parity bit the next time the RAM accesses the data, then the system will know that at least one part of the bit must have been corrupted. Then, in this case, ECC RAM will refer back to code it generated using a special algorithm when the good data was first stored in memory, and use this code to correct the error, restoring the original 8-bit block of data. So that's cool, right? But if you're asking, should I buy ECC memory for my next build?
and you aren't making some kind of server where zero downtime is absolutely necessary, then the answer is likely no. ECC memory comes at a higher cost with worse performance due to the greater processing required, and isn't even compatible with most consumer motherboards. Not to mention, if you're going for that flashy RGB dream rig, you might be disappointed to note that ECC memory PCBs are usually green and typically lack a heatsink or...
in certain scenarios and stuff, which might make the next dream build of yours look a little less special to the untrained eye. Speaking of untrained eye, FreshBooks is on a mission to make freelancers less stressed and more organized through their easy-to-use tool for crafting and creating and sending professional invoices in seconds. What does this mean by untrained eye?
Well, if you're not an accountant and you're trying to run some form of business, this could actually help you a lot. FreshBooks helps you track your hours. So when it comes to create an invoice, you know exactly what you did, when you did it, who you did it for, and you can even accept deposits from those people that you did it for through their platform. So your work is paid for on your schedule, which is super important.
They also have a tool to manage your expense reports. Their mobile app lets you take a picture of your receipts and pretty much handles the rest. Getting started on FreshBooks is extremely simple, even if you're not a numbers person. Especially if you're not a numbers person, FreshBooks says.
You can try FreshBooks for free for 30 days by going to freshbooks.com forward slash techquickie and entering techquickie in the how did you hear about us section. Alright guys, like the video if your computer is stable, maybe dislike it if you crash all the time and might need some ECC memory. I don't know man, do the button thing.
Down in the comments down below, give me suggestions. For other videos, we should cover on fast as possible. There's a lot of stuff to cover, but we've done a lot of it already. Slight problem.
Also, check out Channel Super Fun. If you wanna laugh at things, this is like the serious channel where we do serious stuff and we try to like teach people stuff. That is the not serious channel. We don't do serious things over there. Doesn't happen.
Thanks for watching. I'll see you guys next time.