Greetings,

We wish to evaluate Linode for one of our clients. They are facing a rather urgent move from Parallels Virtuozzo, so we are thinking Xen for their next server.

1) Does Linode support download / upload of the entire server image? Such would be very helpful to download the production image for testing purposes and upload in the case of D-R / rollback.

2) I noticed browsing the site, it looks like some sort of backups are priced separately as an add-on. So the listed base price is for the "server without seat belts"? Perhaps all the more reason I was seeking an answer to my prior question!

3) I see from your screenshots that it is suggested to run a 32-bit OS rather than 64-bit. Currently on Parallels Virtuozzo, our client is running a 64-bit image. Seems like moving backwards on that point to run 32-bit on Xen. Elaboration please.

Thanks!

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Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/

1. Yes - https://library.linode.com/migration/ssh-copy (though there may be some problems if you want to upload your current disk image because of different virtualization used, you'll have to test this)
2. The base price is without backups. See https://www.linode.com/backups/
3. I believe they currently suggest 64-bit, since the recent upgrade. However generally you'll sometimes see 32-bit suggested over 64 because 64-bit gives a little bit of overhead. So if you know you don't need 64 bit, you can go with 32. It's nothing major though. Linode runs 64-bit perfectly fine as well

Current provider does not support external upload / download of the image, and with Parallels Virtuozzo, it is the Linux distro + a lot of proprietary Parallels nonsense. We are faced with rebuilding no matter what. Same provider they have Parallels Virtuozzo with does not allow download / upload of the Xen image either. So +1 for Linode that they support such.

Good to know that backups are not included in the base price.

I have found x64 Linux much snappier than x86 on the same hardware. Since this client has already undergone the migration to x64 successfully a number of years ago, and since you say there is no issue running x64 currently with Linode, I would prefer to stick with x64.

Thank you!

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Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/

For most applications (if it is web-based and isn't http://zunzun.com/ and doesn't run something that requires more than ~2 GB of RAM per process), there should be no performance difference between 32- and 64-bit on Linode. Of course, there are a bunch of other variables as well.

Myself, I go for 64-bit whenever possible nowadays, on the off chance that I don't get a chance to reinstall it before 2036.

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Fun fact: ZFS is barely functional on 32-bit Linux, but works great on 64-bit Linux. This is because it originated on a platform (Solaris) where virtual address space usage was common (Linux recommends against it) and address space limitations weren't really an issue. 64-bit hardware address space is so enormous, however, that it just entirely sidesteps the issue.