ECC for an 8-player Minecraft server is overkill

Yes, it’s overkill. A single bit flip could corrupt a world file in theory, but in practice you’re far more likely to have the server crash from a memory leak, a bad plugin, or a power flicker.

Bit flips happen, but they’re rare in consumer hardware under normal conditions. For an 8-player server that probably isn’t running 24/7 with mission-critical uptime, you’re spending extra money to prevent a problem you probably won’t see. Even if a flip does occur, it usually corrupts a single block or entity—not the entire world. You’d need a really unlucky flip in exactly the right chunk of memory during a save to cause real damage.

If you’re paranoid, set up automatic backups (every 30 minutes) and call it done. That covers you against crashes, corruptions, and the occasional derp much better than ECC ever will.

Backups are the real safety net here.