With LPDDR5 on the new M1 Pro / Max, will it include on chip ECC?

[rudigern]

I've just watched the announcement but haven't seen it discussed anywhere that the new M1 Pro includes 256 bit LPDDR5 interface. Part of the DDR5 spec has ECC on chip (not in transit like normal ECC) and am curious if the M1 Pro would include ECC on chip.

With RAM getting up to 64GB on consumer laptops ECC is becoming important for data integrity which is why they put it as part of the spec.

 

[chumps]

I doubt it has ECC or it would be mentioned in the spec sheet. DDR5 supports ECC but it's not mandated as far as I know. I imagine Apple Silicon iMac Pro/Mac Pro may support ECC. I have an Intel Mac w/ 48 GB memory and will eventually upgrade it to 128 GB and I'm not sure if I would miss ECC? At least I haven't so far. Then again I'm but a lowly 'creative'.

 

[rudigern]

I doubt it has ECC or it would be mentioned in the spec sheet. DDR5 supports ECC but it's not mandated as far as I know. I imagine Apple Silicon iMac Pro/Mac Pro may support ECC. I have an Intel Mac w/ 48 GB memory and will eventually upgrade it to 128 GB and I'm not sure if I would miss ECC? At least I haven't so far. Then again I'm but a lowly 'creative'.

Previous DDR specs had ECC as option which is why some did and some didn't. I believe thats why DDR5 was different and was talked about that because of the size memory on consumer systems (previously reserved for servers) it was becoming a requirement.

Normal ECC is slightly slower because of the increased memory bandwidth required to account for error correction on the wire but DDR5 just has it on the chip. I've noticed it on my systems purely from a stability point of view, moving from needing to restart monthly to 3 months and counting. That stability had me sold on ECC when memory is getting very large.

 

[chumps]

I'm pro ECC but unless indicated otherwise I'd assume the new MacBook Pro's do not have ECC memory. MBP's are really 'prosumer' anyway. If Apple supports ECC it's gonna happen in the iMac Pro* and Mac Pro lines.

*Assuming iMac Pro's will be a thing.

 

[Gnattu]

First of all, LPDDR5 and DDR5 are different technology.
Second, the on-die ECC of DDR5 is not a replacement of sideband ECC we seen on servers, it is added to increase chip yield, and you still need sideband ECC for point to point data integrity.

 

[k27]

It looks like there is no ECC Ram available at Apple anymore. Mac Studio has no ECC Ram. The Mac Pro probably won't have it either. This is a step backwards.

 

[Basic75]

It looks like there is no ECC Ram available at Apple anymore. Mac Studio has no ECC Ram. The Mac Pro probably won't have it either. This is a step backwards.

It's a shame, Apple normalized IPS displays and other technologies that were available but not universal. I wish they'd do the same for ECC. Unfortunately they've shown where their priorities are with APFS not supporting data checksums... They could and should put some more meat behind the "Pro" label.

 

[senttoschool]

It looks like there is no ECC Ram available at Apple anymore. Mac Studio has no ECC Ram. The Mac Pro probably won't have it either. This is a step backwards.

Why do you think they won't have it for Mac Pro?

 

[leman]

I wish they'd do the same for ECC.

We can't really discount the possibility that M1 uses some form of ECC already. I mean, we just don't know. Apple's RAM solution is fully custom, who knows what's in there.

Unfortunately they've shown where their priorities are with APFS not supporting data checksums...

This has been discussed ad nauseam. APFS doesn't need data checksums because the SSD controller takes care of them on the lower level. This is really only a problem with external third-party media — and I agree entirely that Apple should improve their game here. I would love to build myself a Mac-Mini based NAS.

 

[Basic75]

We can't really discount the possibility that M1 uses some form of ECC already. I mean, we just don't know. Apple's RAM solution is fully custom, who knows what's in there.

You really think they would increase the manufacturing cost without milking the cow? Given Intel's asinine approach to ECC it would be so easy to use this for marketing, "we care about your data"! Of course only if they do, indeed, care about our data.

This has been discussed ad nauseam. APFS doesn't need data checksums because the SSD controller takes care of them on the lower level. This is really only a problem with external third-party media — and I agree entirely that Apple should improve their game here. I would love to build myself a Mac-Mini based NAS.

Yeah, even if we assume that the checksums in the SSD controller are equivalent to an end-to-end checksum, external drives are important enough to merit the feature, for NAS, for backups, for (professional) users that don't keep everything on the internal drive, for all the USB sticks that are still in use to this day.

 

[Basic75]

DDR5 just has it on the chip

It is worth begin repeated, the on-chip ECC of DDR5 is for cheaper chips whose memory cells have higher bit error rates. It does not provide end-to-end data integrity like classical ECC memory does. Just another example of cheaper instead of better.