64 bit Server OS - What are the advantages?
 

I just increased ram on one of my servers and the OS had to be upgraded to 64 bit. What are the advantages of a 64 bit OS on a typical server besides the ability to add a lot of ram? Is 64 bit more secure or can be made more secure?

The advantage is the amount of data the processors can hold. However, just adding more RAM is not usually enough to cause an upgrade to 64-bit. What OS are you running? Processors?

Because it utilize more memory. 32bit only works with 4GB of RAM. You have to go 64bit to have anymore. Nothing to do with security.

You can run much more ram on 64bit.

64 bit instruction sets are preferred for video rendering/conversion using FFMPEG.

I have an i7 (920) rig with 8gb Intel Smart Cache, 8GB No-ECC RAM, and Matrox RTX2, which re-compresses video at approximately 3 times the play speed, and renders raw video at about 1.6 - 1.7 times the play speed ...

no 32bit rig will go that fast!

It's a small difference, but it should help the speeds when loading software some.

Just like someone up above said, with a 32 bit system it will only utilize about 4 gig of ram. With your operating system taking up about 1 gig that only leaves 3 gig for processing. Now with programs like adobes premier pro, after effects, lightroom, and photoshop being so ram hungry you will need more ram to get things done at any descent rate of speed. So load your motherboard up with ram, it's cheap right? Wrong your 32 bit system will still only see 4 gig of ram no matter how much you actually have. Now it's time in this graphic rich world we live in to go out and get a computer capable of 64 bit. Then it's time to purchase your windows 7 in 64 bit and last but not least you can load that board up with ram and hoo-ya you have a screamin system (at least way faster than your old 32 bit. Trust me you'll love it!

Gary -- he said SERVER OS, by the way ... Not talking about the desktop.

This what I have now.

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

CentOS release 5.5 64bit

8 gig ram

The main benefit in your case would probably be that the 64 bit version can address your 8GB of RAM. There's probably very little difference otherwise, unless you want to fool around with low level stuff.

Okay, having a 64 bit system vs having a 32 bit system means that you can address more RAM.

BUT

Unless the applications being run are also 64 bit, you will still have the 4 gig limit per application. That is per application, not in total, so a 64 bit system runs faster from an application use standpoint.

From a Windows standpoint you go from a 2gig virtual ram limit per application to 8TB of virtual, which as facialfreak mentioned allows him to do video editing/rendering/processing at nice speeds.

I opened a thread once with same question,and people said how it also handle multiple cores better then 32 bit version.

Well said by top notch.
:thumbsup

Now run memcached with 1gig of ram and all of your troubles will be solved.

Is that something that something that is added to the server like a script, program or module or already in the OS and needs to be enabled? I'm not too knowledgeable on servers.

It's a pretty common script caching system that your host can enable for you. When in place you can optimize your code with memcached calls to greatly relieve stress on highly trafficked dynamic pages using db queries or page calls. Great piece of code when properly used imho. Combined with other frameworks such as cake or smarty with caching and storage options also enabled and optimized can make quite a bit of difference in your server loads and delivery speeds.

- you can use/allocate more RAM
- mysql will run faster
and that's about it...

no bigger differences in security...

Guys, how is it with Linux based servers..... if you switch to 64 bit OS.... logically the system allocates more memory for itself.

Is my assumption correct?

This means using 64 bit OS with little memory (less than 4 GB) can be counterproductive. Your opinions?

Here's the difference between 32bit and 64bit, in an analogy....

Bike = 32bit
Car = 64bit

To travel to the next block, the bicycle and car will arrive at almost the same time.

To travel 5 miles across town, the car will whip the bicycle's ass.

So the bigger and more intense a system operation is, the better 64bit will be. In smaller stuff, you'll see no difference between 32 and 64. This is the way it applies to 3D animation, from my experience -- so I'd guess its that way for most computations.

You can never have a computer that is too fast or too efficient. Go 64 and don't look back. I've been using it for 5 years.

Actually .. its a Linux rig running FFMpeg. Windblows is a much too bloated platform for serious video rendering speeds.

:winkwink:

It really just opens up the Pathways for 64Bit Computing.. Allowing certain things to preform better .. Also .. it helps for the amount of Data that can be processed between things like your processor and network card , Pci-E X slots...