What to do with my free RAM... (Ubuntu Server)

[sammcj]

I have 4GB of DDR2/667 in my Ubuntu Server which is only acting as a Samba server for NAS.

I only actually use 256-512MB of that 4GB and am looking for some interesting ideas on what to do with the left-over 3.5+GB.

http://www.nullamatix.com/images/I-dunno-lol.jpg

Ideas anyone?

[sandyd]

Seti@ home ?

[Paqman]

Seti@ home ?

Doesn't really use much RAM, it's all about CPU cycles. Actually these days it's more about GPU cycles, but you get my point.

You could always create some ramdisks. /tmp is an obvious candidate for this.

[sammcj]

Seti@ home ?

Doesn't really use lots of a RAM, also I don't really want my NAS to be running hot!

[renkinjutsu]

run a bunch of daemons that you can connect to with gui's? like quassel (i think), Deluge? anything.. Game servers for LAN parties xD

[foremannz]

VirtualBox an Ubuntu client, then remote access it from another computer - could be good for things like torrents when you don't want your desktop to be used

[gletob]

VirtualBox an Ubuntu client, then remote access it from another computer - could be good for things like torrents when you don't want your desktop to be used

Then you would just run a torrent server like the deluge web ui. Much more efficent than A VM, but a VirtualBox backend does seem like a cool idea.

[sammcj]

Right, well I'm running Deluge...
So now with Deluge, Apache, Mysql, PHP, firefly media server, ushare xbox upnp server, samba and some other services running I'm using a whopping 119MB of my 4GB of RAM... (Not counting the 256MB RAMDisk I setup too).

Tell me more about running a VM on it headless?

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h255/sammcj2000/Screenshot2009-09-27at105720PM.png

[hessiess]

Bake massive fluid sims in Blender, honestly this is the only thing I am aware of which would eaven start to use that much RAM.

[sammcj]

Bake massive fluid sims in Blender, honestly this is the only thing I am aware of which would eaven start to use that much RAM.

fantastic...

how do you take your rendered coffee?


can anyone feel a rendering farm coming along?

[Paqman]

Sell the extra RAM on eBay and buy something useful.

[bodhi.zazen]

Linux is not windows and the sad truth is most people do not use more then 1.5 Gb RAM . That is not to say that some users do not require more, just that most do not.

Server side I would advise you look at Virtualization.

[HavocXphere]

So you have the solution but not a matching problem. Right.

Use /dev/shm to dump files into the memory. Just remember that its gone when you restart or power gets cut. Unlike your RAMdisk, it will use as much RAM as is needed/available.

I use it mainly when working on images. Much faster than HDD. In your case a slow network might kill any gains though since its on the server.

[sammcj]

So you have the solution but not a matching problem. Right.


I guess you could say that's correct; I hate to see RAM go to waste!




Use /dev/shm to dump files into the memory. Just remember that its gone when you restart or power gets cut. Unlike your RAMdisk, it will use as much RAM as is needed/available.

I use it mainly when working on images. Much faster than HDD. In your case a slow network might kill any gains though since its on the server.


Hmm this sounds interesting, I have a full-duplex GbE network.
Thanks.

[sammcj]

Sell the extra RAM on eBay and buy something useful.

Unfortunately DDR2 is near worthless, if you go to our local shop you can buy 2GB for NZ$30 (US$21).

I was more interesting in what projects people had in mind.

[sammcj]

Linux is not windows and the sad truth is most people do not use more then 1.5 Gb RAM . That is not to say that some users do not require more, just that most do not.

Server side I would advise you look at Virtualization.

Yes I fully agree and understand, I find I can use 2GB+ with VM / Photoshop.

Having more RAM does allow the OS to preload higher amounts of data which is nice; but this applies more the the desktop scene.

[Paqman]

Unfortunately DDR2 is near worthless, if you go to our local shop you can buy 2GB for NZ$30 (US$21).


Enough for several beers.

[3rdalbum]

Sell the extra RAM on eBay and buy something useful.

+1. I don't think there's anything worthwhile you can do on a headless server that will use up RAM and not push your CPU.

[bear24rw]

put /tmp in a ram disk and then cat /dev/urandom > /tmp/really_big_file.txt see how long it takes to eat your ram

[Dimitriid]

Get a more modest PC to run as server and use your current server for something like gaming ( you will need a videocard but with the recent launch of new ATI cards nvidia won't be trailing for long and we'll have incredible prices as the result of their all out war )

[sammcj]

Get a more modest PC to run as server and use your current server for something like gaming ( you will need a videocard but with the recent launch of new ATI cards nvidia won't be trailing for long and we'll have incredible prices as the result of their all out war )

Thanks for the suggestion but no no no no no no; the idea of this thread is to come up with something that it could be used for on this server - brainstorm time!

[Dimitriid]

I'd say donate resources to a good cause but I think they are more interested in CPU and not ram again.