32bit vs. 64 bit

[turnersloane]

My data center is closing a floor for renovation and my servers happen to be on that floor, thus I need to move clients to new boxes.

I am able to select OS's; I currently use CentOS 32 bit. I am curious if there are any advantages/disadvantages to moving to 64 bit on production boxes (I run 64bit in the office).

Thanks,
Sloane

 

[unihostbrasil]

We run some CentOS 5.8 64bit servers, all DirectAdmin services are fully compatible and we don't have any problems/disadvantages.

 

[nobaloney]

64-bit works fine. There are two advantages to using it:

1) While some 32-bit kernels have support for memory > 4GB, it's not as straightforward inside the kernel architecture. No speed degradation noted by me, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And of course if you do install more than 4GB you must verify that your kernel supports it.

2) I forget for what architecture CentOS 32-bit is compiled; if it's i386, the compiled software won't be quite as efficient on a 64-bit capable processor. If it's i686, it should be, and again I haven't noticed the difference.

Jeff