Is there any real advantage to using 64 bit when I am right at the 4gb ram threshhold? Nice plans to add more ram. The machine will just be a backup machie (rsync). Thanks in advance. D
On Mar 2, 2009, at 10:55 AM, Dnk <d.k.emaillists at gmail.com> wrote:> Is there any real advantage to using 64 bit when I am right at the 4gb > ram threshhold? Nice plans to add more ram. > > The machine will just be a backup machie (rsync). > > Thanks in advance.These days I'd do all servers and development boxes 64-bit and only deploy 32-bit for end-user workstations. The VM management and file system management advantages are real no matter how much memory you have and the 32-bit support is perfect so there is no need to go 32-bit at all. -Ross
Dnk wrote:> Is there any real advantage to using 64 bit when I am right at the 4gb > ram threshhold?Yes, unless you're not turning on swap. Once you add swap to a system with 4 GB of RAM, you need either PAE or 64-bit to actually use the swap. Since 64-bit CPUs became cheap last year, there's no longer a good reason to use PAE on a new system, so that means 64-bit. You can make much the same argument farther down the line....even with 2 GB RAM and 2 GB swap, 64-bit might be the right configuration choice.> The machine will just be a backup machie (rsync).I doubt you'll actually use all that RAM, 64-bit or not. An rsync-only box should be completely I/O bound. If it were a choice between more RAM and either another disk spindle or a hardware RAID card, I'd choose the better disk setup, here. I assume you will have a gigabit Ethernet link...the trick then is to saturate it, which you can't do with a single disk, no matter how much RAM you've got, or how much 64-bitness you throw at it. Fail to saturate the network link, and you're slowing your backups. If the rsync box is on the other side of a slow network link, I'd still go for a better disk setup over more RAM. In that particular case, I'd be looking at things like hot spares, because it means you're probably not always near the server to swap disks when they fail.
Dnk wrote:> Is there any real advantage to using 64 bit when I am right at the 4gb > ram threshhold? Nice plans to add more ram. > > The machine will just be a backup machie (rsync).For a server type of thing, 64 bit is usually perfect. 32 bit is sometimes a better deal on desktops, but even there the situation is changing. Maybe this year I'll use 64 bit on my desktop(s) for the first time, as it seems most of the lingering problems are being solved, finally. -- Florin Andrei http://florin.myip.org/
On 3-Mar-09, at 3:01 PM, Rainer Duffner wrote:> > Am 03.03.2009 um 23:57 schrieb Jerry Franz: > >> >> >> >> Paul Hussein wrote: >>> there still doesnt seem to be a 64bit java plugin >> >> You can use the 32bit plugin if you change the launcher script to >> launch >> the 32 bit version of firefox instead of the 64 bit version. >> > > > > Or konqueror, which somehow uses the java-binary to run applets. > > But I must admit, I rarely need it. But if you do a lot of work with > blade-systems and their various remote-management facilities, one > might want to have a stable java environment...Well in context to why I asked my original question, it was more for servers with no browser/X running.... So in my case, kind of a moot point. =-) d