You don&#x27;t strictly need ECC RAM to run ZFS any more than you do when running other filesystems, the issues that comes with a bad stick of RAM will just become more obvious which is not a bad thing. It&#x27;s just assumed that if you run ZFS you do care about getting the same data out that you put in, so it&#x27;s highly recommended. Bottom line is, ZFS without ECC isn&#x27;t worse than other filesystems without ECC.