RavenSauce
New Member
I am goign to reinstall my vps and was wondering if it mattered which one I use and if there is any difference between them? I have a cpanel vps with 40gb of storage an 1gb of ram if it matters.
32 or 64bit system? Which one to use?
- Thread starter RavenSauce
- Start date
There's no reason to go with 32bit these days unless you use software or hardware that is not compatible with 64bit architecture. Sure, there is a minor amount of RAM savings if you go with 32bit (64bit processes use more RAM, but it's not enough to make it worth using 32bit just for the savings).
My main reason for going with 64bit? It's a PITA to migrate over to 64bit later down the road if/when you exceed 4GB of RAM which I've run into a lot with cPanel. I'd rather just install a 64bit OS and upgrade the RAM as I go rather than install a 32bit OS, upgrade the RAM to 4GB, build a new VPS with a 64bit OS, then migrate the users/data over to the new VPS, then upgrade the RAM over 4GB.
If you are 100% sure you will never use more than 4GB of RAM then 32bit might be an option but just because you are 100% sure now doesn't mean you won't ever do it (I learned the hard way).
My main reason for going with 64bit? It's a PITA to migrate over to 64bit later down the road if/when you exceed 4GB of RAM which I've run into a lot with cPanel. I'd rather just install a 64bit OS and upgrade the RAM as I go rather than install a 32bit OS, upgrade the RAM to 4GB, build a new VPS with a 64bit OS, then migrate the users/data over to the new VPS, then upgrade the RAM over 4GB.
If you are 100% sure you will never use more than 4GB of RAM then 32bit might be an option but just because you are 100% sure now doesn't mean you won't ever do it (I learned the hard way).
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Anything above 1 GB RAM VPS I'd say you should go with 64-bit. Below the 1GB RAM Threshold I'd say go with the 32-bit.
However, as the future basically says it's going to be 64-bit no matter what, I'd recommend the 64-bit system.
Like what @KuJoe said, if you're planning on growing and expanding the VPS or any other services, in the future migrating from 32-bit to 64-bit will be another factor you will have to consider. If you just start with the 64-bit service then you'll be fine.
However, as the future basically says it's going to be 64-bit no matter what, I'd recommend the 64-bit system.
Like what @KuJoe said, if you're planning on growing and expanding the VPS or any other services, in the future migrating from 32-bit to 64-bit will be another factor you will have to consider. If you just start with the 64-bit service then you'll be fine.
Licensecart
Active Member
I recommend 64bit 
DomainBop
Dormant VPSB Pathogen
256MB (and below if I had anything smaller) are the only VPS's that I still use 32-bit for... (I do have a couple of 10-yr old IBM Pentium 4 workstations with 1GB RAM and 1.5GB RAM that use 32-bit because they don't support 64-bit)
The other reason to go with 64-bit is some Linux distros (like Chakra Linux) and developers have already announced they will only be putting out 64-bit versions. PC-BSD also dropped its 32-bit version. The number of projects going 64-bit only will only increase going forward.
Since this is going to host cPanel, I would say there is no choice other than 64bit since cPanel only offers support if the host node is also 64bit, which I don't know for sure, but would definitely take that bet.
Well, that used to be on the system requirements page, but no longer is https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/ALD/Installation%20Guide%20-%20System%20Requirements
Well, that used to be on the system requirements page, but no longer is https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/ALD/Installation%20Guide%20-%20System%20Requirements
SentinelTower
New Member
I know that a 64bit system can address more memory but does a system on 64bit run faster than one on 32bit? Does it depends on the type of software?
If we think about it, the system has to write/read twice the amount of data for each memory operation, isn't it slower ?
If we think about it, the system has to write/read twice the amount of data for each memory operation, isn't it slower ?
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In benchmarks, 64bit has always been faster although we're talking about such a small margin it's doubtful anybody would notice except on a large scale in which case you're running 64bit anyways because of RAM usage.
lbft
Active Member
The answer is that it depends on the characteristics of the particular workload, but generally 64 bit will be slightly faster at the cost of higher memory consumption.
32 bit has the advantage of slightly lower memory consumption (e.g. smaller pointers) and potentially fewer cache misses because of that, while 64 bit has the advantage of more registers and being able to work with some bigger numbers more efficiently.
If you don't care enough to actually benchmark your application on both, then it isn't worth worrying about - use whatever makes your life easier.
64bit - if your app you want to run doesn't work or run on 64bit, you probably shouldn't be running it for security reasons (it must be wildly out of date!)
Simple first choice - 64bit architecture on any Linux OS. However, if you have a small virtual server (less than 768MB RAM) then I would select 32bit. You may actually save some MB's of RAM this way.
If you do exceed the 3GB usable RAM limit in a 32bit OS, you can install a PAE kernel which will allow you to use more than 4GB.
If you do exceed the 3GB usable RAM limit in a 32bit OS, you can install a PAE kernel which will allow you to use more than 4GB.
No they didn't. Their 32 bit templates were just updated a few weeks ago.
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lbft
Active Member
Even though I wrote one of the posts talking about when whichever is appropriate, I have to agree. 64-bit is the standard - all the x86 family hardware that you could possibly even consider running today has support for x86-64, sensible modern 64-bit distros have the ability to run 32-bit binaries if you're stuck without source, and RHEL7 doesn't even come in a 32-bit flavour any more - so unless you have a very good reason (in which case you wouldn't have to ask), you should get used to using it.
In the future there might also be an "x32" ABI in the Linux distributions, which is 64-bit and takes advantage of the increased number of registers, but uses 32-bit pointers to save memory. The Linux kernel already supports it (if enabled), but in practice it's not yet usable because the distributions don't support it or only provide very few packages for x32.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI
https://wiki.debian.org/X32Port
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI
https://wiki.debian.org/X32Port