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I understand the risks of using third party ram but paying for the Cisco branded memory modules and CF cards on an old ASA which is no longer covered but Smartnet is ludicrous.
There are plenty of third parties who claim they sell compatible RAM. Does anyone have any experience as to what memory the ASA 5520 or any of the 55x0 series is compatible with?
Assuming it's a real 5520 and not a fake that's actually a converted 5510 (yep, a bunch of those were floating around - you'll know it by the fact it's only got a single RAM slot) you'll want PC3200 with CAS latency (CL) of 3 running at 400MT/s, unbuffered, ECC.
Not sure if the ASAs are also picky about the chip arrangement too, so if you want to play it super safe, make sure the RAM you buy has the memory spread across 8 chips.
The ASA's aren't commodity PCs. As such, they aren't as robust or forgiving, and are insanely picky about memory. Even if you think you have all the variables correct, you can still miss one.
I've seen 3rd party memory work in one device, but not another, memory that appears to work until the ASA is software rebooted, etc. It's very telling that Crucial, who makes modules for just about everybody and everything, doesn't list any ASAs. Memoryx lists "certified" (they promise they'll work) modules, but wisely doesn't tell you the exact specs.
Just wanted to note about the 2x ASA 5520's that I have. The original sticks inside the 5520s were OEM RAM.
One set had the model/part-no cis00-21077-508mg on it. (PC2700 ECC)
The other was OEM Micron memory mt8vddt6464ay-40bf4 (PC3200 ECC CL3)
As these firewalls are more for testing and lab use now so we chose to take the risk with non ECC memory in order to save money. We found some old server RAM in the warehouse and upgraded each firewall with 4x 512Mb PC2700 non-ECC sticks. Both firewalls booted up fine and have been upgraded to the latest 8.4(6) ASA code. So far they have ran without problems.
