64GB ECC is overkill for a home media server.

Yes, unless you’re running dozens of VMs or handling massive deduplication.

ZFS loves RAM—it uses it for ARC (read cache) and metadata. But for a media server serving Plex or Jellyfin, your bottleneck is almost never the RAM. Video files are sequential reads; the ARC doesn’t help much beyond a few gigabytes. 8GB is workable, 16GB is comfortable, 32GB is future-proof. 64GB is lighting money on fire.

ECC is nice if your hardware supports it cheaply (like Supermicro or used server gear), but don’t pay a premium for it. For a home box, non-ECC with regular scrubs is fine. The probability of a bit flip corrupting a movie is astronomically low.

If you really want to max out, get 32GB ECC and call it done. Put the saved cash into drives or 10Gb networking—those actually matter.

Save the money for more storage or a faster network.