Re: i386 with PAE or AMD64 on PowerEdge with 4G RAM

From: <youshi10_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:27:30 -0700 (PDT)
On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, Martin Turgeon wrote:

> Thank you all for your advices, I will take a try with AMD64.
>
> I'm always impressed by the support on the FreeBSD mailinglist, continue your 
> good work.
>
> Martin
>
>
> Stefan Lambrev a écrit :
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Martin Turgeon wrote:
>>> Good afternoon,
>>> 
>>> I just receive 2 PowerEdge servers (a 1950 and a 860) both with 4G of RAM. 
>>> I installed FreeBSD 6.2 Release i386 on both of them. Unfortunately, only 
>>> 3,5G is recognized on the 860 and 3,3G on the 1950.
>>> dmesg on 860:
>>> real memory = 3757834240 (3583 MB)
>>> avail memory = 3678318592 (3507 MB)
>>> 
>>> I am facing a difficult decision. Should I use i386 with PAE enabled in 
>>> the kernel (I read a lot of warnings using it) or should I go with AMD64? 
>>> Which branch should I follow?
>>> 
>>> These servers will be front-end/back-end MySQL(with replication) and 
>>> Apache servers with BIND, Postfix, Dovecot, PF.
>> I have NO problems with FreeBSD AMD64, at least not more then I have with 
>> i386 versions.
>> 
>> I do not see a problem to run MySQL, apache, BIND,Postfix and PF - as I use 
>> them myself for near 2 years under freebsd amd64.
>> 
>> I even can say that at some point amd64 becomes more stable (for me) then 
>> i386.
>> The major problem (again for me) is that there is no way to connect 64bit 
>> apache under freebsd to Oracle DB.
>> 
>> Saying that I'm quite happy using FreBSD amd64 (even for desktop/laptop 
>> machines) and knowing how broken is PAE .. just go for amd64.
>> 
>>> 
>>> There is the detailled configuration of the servers:
>>> PowerEdge 1950
>>> Xeon 5110
>>> 4G RAM
>>> PERC 5 Raid controller (mfi)
>>> Dual Broadcom 5708 (bce)
>>> 
>>> PowerEdge 860
>>> Xeon 3070
>>> 4G RAM
>>> LSI Logic Raid controller (mpt)
>>> Dual Broadcom 5750 (bge)
>> If you still consider PAE check very carefully that all your drivers work OK 
>> with PAE kernel!
>>> 
>>> Thanks a lot for your advice,
>>> 
>>> Martin

Just don't expect to turn the machines into 3D desktops for at least a year :).

amd64 is much better than i386 though from a functional standpoint, and your databases probably won't mind the extra precision :).

-Garrett
Received on Tue Jun 19 2007 - 16:27:31 UTC

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