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Dear Matt,
Memtest 86+ and similar tools can test the DRAM module only for hard errors (hardware defects). Are you suggesting that the soft errors (the common spontaneous flipping of a bit state) that happen in all memories do not have a considerable effect in Freesurfer’s results?
Best Regards, Sotiris
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Dear all,
This is just to close up this question. After some correspondence with the lab's members, I was informed that due to the imaging nature of the software ECC is not "needed" but advisable. The lab's computers are all equipped with ECC memory. However, a double run of an analysis is deemed adequate to over come the rare case of any such errors, even when non-ECC is used.
I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this questions with their comments as well as the lab's members that assisted me with this issue.
Best Regards, Sotiris Michos
freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu