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I'm building a FreeNAS file server and have been searching for ram. What's available is either:
2x 8 GB DDR3 1600 single channel (CL11)
or
2x 8 GB DDR3 1333 dual channel (CL9)
Price difference doesn't matter. I just want to know which would be better.
Many anecdotal reports have suggested that dual channel offers a 10% increase over single channel, where as ddr 1600 is only 1% faster than 1333. Check the maximum pc and tomshardware forums for benchmarks of people who have tried this. – spuder – 2013-08-11T06:38:22.633
I just realized I worded my question wrong, but seems like you got my point. I meant both are 2x 8gb sticks. – gavsiu – 2013-08-11T06:45:38.217
glad to hear, I'm going to look up some supporting resources, and turn this into an answer. – spuder – 2013-08-11T06:56:55.443
If your motherboard support dual channel memory access then you can use both "8 GB DDR3 1600 single channel (CL11)" DIMMs for dual channel access. There is no difference between dual channel DIMMs and identical single channel DIMMs. The dual channel sets just mean "We made sure these two have identical specs so you can use them in a dual channel configuration". – Hennes – 2013-08-11T09:05:48.583
Also, more memory allows for more disk caching. This means that if you access the same data multiple times (e.g. when you open a folder with MP3 and replay the same song a bit later - Song A, Song B, reclick on song A which will be loaded from the cache-) then more RAM is better than faster RAM. Other than that latency and single/dual/tripple/.. channel memory etc is not likely to be your limiting factor. This is most likely the NICs, the drive or the CPU, neither of which specs are in the OP. – Hennes – 2013-08-11T09:09:25.597