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Does 64bit system makes sense on low ram systems (like a 128-512MB VPS)?
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Does 64bit system makes sense on low ram systems (like a 128-512MB VPS)?

Hello.

Is there a reason to favor a 64 bit system over 32 bit one on a low end VPS with little RAM (typically 128-512MB RAM)?

It seems to me that 32 bit will make it possible to save some RAM, at the cost - maybe - of a little bit of performance improvement, but not much. I could be missing something. Any obvious reason to favor a 64bit system, even in low RAM scenari?

Thanks!

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Comments

  • @pbx said:
    Hello.

    Is there a reason to favor a 64 bit system over 32 bit one on a low end VPS with little RAM (typically 128-512MB RAM)?

    It seems to me that 32 bit will make it possible to save some RAM, at the cost - maybe - of a little bit of performance improvement, but not much. I could be missing something. Any obvious reason to favor a 64bit system, even in low RAM scenari?

    Thanks!

    Your main reason is heterogeneity, i.e. same OS/scripts/repos across different instances.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • 64bit system is faster

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • zhizhi Member

    Try to use 64bit. Some systems or software may drop support for 32bit.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • 64bits. Period.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    @pbx said:
    Hello.

    Is there a reason to favor a 64 bit system over 32 bit one on a low end VPS with little RAM (typically 128-512MB RAM)?

    It seems to me that 32 bit will make it possible to save some RAM, at the cost - maybe - of a little bit of performance improvement, but not much. I could be missing something. Any obvious reason to favor a 64bit system, even in low RAM scenari?

    Thanks!

    As I happen to be quite deep into a relevant field: Yes, performance - and not as in 'youtube wisdom' blabla "64-bit is faster than 32-bit" which was wrong or quite relative for quite some years. Reason: often more memory is more decisive for performance than "more" processor. So, it made perfect sense to go with 32-bit on (very) small systems and I myself did so for years after amd64 entered the stage (and it worked just fine).

    Not anymore though because hashes, crypto algos, etc are pretty much everywhere and more often than not they are much faster on 64-bit and many even have been designed for 64-bit. Plus of course AVX (less often used but still important).

    For example a crypto artifact I recently implemented achieves almost double the performance on 64-bit (vs 32-bit) and about four times the performance when AVX is available.

    Thanked by 2pbx kjinxs
  • amjamj Member

    32bit has no future.
    Many Linux distros have already discontinued 32bit support.
    FreeBSD 13.x demoted i386 support tier to Tier 2.
    Providers have not 32bit VM templates except ELDER versions.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    32bit has no future. 16bit has.

    Go with 16bit.

  • Packages support also often not available...

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • pbxpbx Member
    edited January 2022

    Thanks guys!

    @deank said: 16bit has.

    Sounds neat even though @jsg and others have pretty good arguments in favor of 64bit. Any good 16bit distro you'd recommend? If not, I might consider that the end is night.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    The easiest way to grab a 16bit distro would be going back in time.
    I don't mean that literally.

    Take BSD for an example. It's a really old OS. It started in 80s or something. So, grab BSD 1 or 2, and I am dickly sure that those should be 16bit or even 8bit!

    8bit forever!

    Thanked by 2pbx yoursunny
  • yoursunnyyoursunny Member, IPv6 Advocate

    @deank said:
    8bit forever!

    Arduino Uno is 8bit and it runs slowly.
    8bit has no future.
    Go with 0bit.

    IPv9 supports 0bit communication.
    The only message you can send is yo.
    Try the yo command in our Antarctica IPv9 VPS.

  • @yoursunny said:

    @deank said:
    8bit forever!

    Arduino Uno is 8bit and it runs slowly.
    8bit has no future.
    Go with 0bit.

    IPv9 supports 0bit communication.
    The only message you can send is yo.
    Try the yo command in our Antarctica IPv9 VPS.

    YOBS

  • farsighterfarsighter Member
    edited January 2022

    Forward compatibility.
    Best practice.
    32-bit is disappearing.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • _MS__MS_ Member
    edited January 2022

    Use -32-bit for backword compatibility.

  • BTW if that VPS is a container like LXC or OpenVZ then you don't have choice anyway, it will use hosts

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Which is exactly why you should set up a low end host for your 8bit node. Might as well sell some capacity to customers on LET.

    It is a very niche market, so I am sure you can make some dough out of this venture.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • Unless you are developing something embedded, otherwise just upgrade your server rather than try to squeeze the last performance with 32bit

    Thanked by 2pbx yoursunny
  • I would use 32bit. I still use it on some Debian servers.

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    @elliotc said:
    Unless you are developing something embedded, otherwise just upgrade your server rather than try to squeeze the last performance with 32bit

    Come on, for a name server, a (not extremely busy) mail server and a lot of other jobs a 32-bit OS still is damn good enough. A friend of mine runs quite a few Alpine boxes (mostly NS) on 128 MB and even on 96 MB VPS.

    After all this is LET.

    Thanked by 2pbx default
  • xyzxyz Member

    @jsg said: Plus of course AVX (less often used but still important).

    But x86-64 doesn't mandate AVX support (and will likely be absent if the provider doesn't do CPUID passthrough) and AVX works fine on 32-bit.

    Some crypto (e.g. SHA512) will benefit greatly on 64-bit, others (e.g. SHA1/MD5) won't. But servers probably do AES the most, in terms of crypto, and that's accelerated via AES-NI.

    I'd recommend 64-bit if you can, for the various reasons mentioned above, but 32-bit is a fine choice if you're RAM constrained. I'd probably recommend 32-bit for <=256MB RAM, 512MB somewhat depends on your scenario, whilst I'd generally go with 64-bit for >=1GB RAM.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    Depends what for.
    32 bit saves little RAM, on 64 MB of course it matters greatly, on 384 not that much.
    Nameserver, sure, but even a proxy with big throughput and encryption would do better on 64 bit.
    IMO, today, even at LET, there are few people using 64 MB or below, albeit we still have people on 50 MB ovz 6 which will be discontinued though. I think 256 is the norm for a low box nowadays, 128 for limited use cases, mostly proxies or storage.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • 64 bits is twice the number of bits that 32 bit systems can bite.

  • jon617jon617 Veteran
    edited January 2022

    @pbx said: It seems to me that 32 bit will make it possible to save some RAM

    Saves RAM, yup, but a small amount and probably not noticeable on a 128+ MB linux system.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • pbxpbx Member
    edited January 2022

    @xyz said: I'd probably recommend 32-bit for <=256MB RAM, 512MB somewhat depends on your scenario, whilst I'd generally go with 64-bit for >=1GB RAM.

    That makes sense!

    @jon617 said: probably not noticeable on a 128+ MB linux system.

    Will do more testing but yeah I assume it's most important in the 64-128MB cases and everything > 256MB or depending what the box is used for = 256 MB will do best on 64 bit with proper optimization.

  • @deank said:
    The easiest way to grab a 16bit distro would be going back in time.
    I don't mean that literally.

    Take BSD for an example. It's a really old OS. It started in 80s or something. So, grab BSD 1 or 2, and I am dickly sure that those should be 16bit or even 8bit!

    8bit forever!

    The correct names are actually 1BSD and 2BSD, and 1BSD was released in 1978.
    Yeah, I'm old as f*ck. :disappointed:

    Thanked by 2AlwaysSkint pbx
  • @Maounique said:
    Depends what for.
    32 bit saves little RAM, on 64 MB of course it matters greatly, on 384 not that much.
    Nameserver, sure, but even a proxy with big throughput and encryption would do better on 64 bit.
    IMO, today, even at LET, there are few people using 64 MB or below, albeit we still have people on 50 MB ovz 6 which will be discontinued though. I think 256 is the norm for a low box nowadays, 128 for limited use cases, mostly proxies or storage.

    Still remember the good old days of running my ZNC off of a 32MB OpenVZ VPS.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • Try to find 16-bit cpu and run windows 3.1. you can even emulate 32-bit. Everything is possible for resource limited solutions, don't give up.

    Thanked by 1pbx
  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    windows 3.0 is the last running on 8086 and 8088 in 640 k ram.

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    @Maounique said:
    Depends what for.
    32 bit saves little RAM, on 64 MB of course it matters greatly, on 384 not that much.
    Nameserver, sure, but even a proxy with big throughput and encryption would do better on 64 bit.

    The throughput isn't the issue. Crypto is.

    @jon617 said:

    @pbx said: It seems to me that 32 bit will make it possible to save some RAM

    Saves RAM, yup, but a small amount and probably not noticeable on a 128+ MB linux system.

    "small amount"? How about ca. 50% with many applications (also on the disk btw.).

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran
    edited January 2022

    @jsg said: The throughput isn't the issue. Crypto is.

    Yep, crypto load depends on throughput. The higher the speed the more encryption needed.

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