[Solved] MySQL 32-bit Binaries

[ytene]

I am recording this post in case anyone else comes across this non-issue.

I am currently running MariaDB 10.5.8, installed via the QNAP App Store. It works exceptionally well...

I also have an instance of PHPMyAdmin, running on a Raspberry Pi [Version 5.2.1, the latest as I write this is 5.2.2] and one of the features it provides is to run an "Advisor" function that is intended to provide suggestions for how to improve the performance of the queried database and the engine it is running on.

When I run this against my NAS instance, the PMA Advisor tells me that the QNAP version of the MariaDB binaries are 32-bit, not 64-bit - which would be odd, given that I'm hosting on a TVS-672XT, which has a 64-bit processor. I raised a support ticket and asked if this data was correct. If you're not deeply familiar with why this might be an important question, it's because 32-bit code cannot address more than 4Gb of RAM, whilst 64-bit code can address massively more [in theory up to 16 exabytes, 16 million terabytes]. A 4Gb limit could become a constraint for even relatively small installations. as a result, this would mean that a 32-bit compiled MariaDB would need to page out to virtual memory, substantially slowing down throughput - of the entire NAS.

QNAP R&D and they came back very quickly to advise that PHPMyAdmin is mis-reporting, that QNAP's binaries are in fact 64-bit.

Probably a minor thing - I'm off to report this to the PHPMyAdmin developers to see if they can tweak their code - but wanted to share just in case anyone else comes across this and wonders why QNAP had apparently compiled 32-bit binaries for 64-bit NAS models.

The answer is - they haven't - this is just a reporting oddity from PMA.

Hope this helps alleviate concerns.