memcache vs memcached

[oldzy]

Just wondering what the diff is. One starts the server/daemon, and the other is the client part?

Was playing around with APC and memcache(d) and installed them. I did not add an extension=memcache(d) to /etc/php.ini though. However, they still show up in phpinfo as the .so modules are in /usr/lib/php/modules. I am assuming that is normal?

At present, I enabled 'File' caching as the back end in library/config.php, but thinking of going the memcache route. Not sure if I need it though. Currently on a GD VPS.

 

[Slavik]

memcached is the proccess / service

memcache is the PECL extension for php which connects to memcached.

 

[oldzy]

Thanks. There are two modules in /usr/lib/php/modules. Is that how it supposed to be?

 

[craigiri]

As far as needing it, some folks say that unless you have multiple servers memcache is not a big deal. I just disabled it on my busy server and left just APC on there...it works fine for me (80K page views a day now on a dedicated server).

I have to wonder if having multitudes of cache schemes is really beneficial? Linux does a lot of this work anyway - as does mysql, etc. - then APC does a lot for php, etc.

For my serious server, I am going to follow the "if it's not broke don't fix it" path for now.....just APC and Linux. I am pretty much tight against my RAM anyway, so having lots of it dedicated to cache is not going to be helpful.

 

[oldzy]

I will prob just leave 'File' back-end caching for now. Site is not that busy anyway at present. This is what they give me @ Godaddy RAM wise. I forget what the burstable is.

 

[digitalpoint]

Memcache is only needed in a multi-web server environment... I can't think of any other scenario where you would want to use it for a website.

 

[p4guru]

Memcache is only needed in a multi-web server environment... I can't think of any other scenario where you would want to use it for a website.

well there are a few i.e. if you use PHP handler which doesn't support opcode cachers i.e. suPHP PHP handler or if you use out of box litespeed web server's LSAPI PHP suexec implementation.

as to original posters question what you see in phpinfo are 2 PHP extensions which allow you to interface with memcached server http://memcached.org/ - one does it directly with memcached server and the other does it via libmemcached

• memcache php extension http://pecl.php.net/package/memcache
• memcached php extension http://pecl.php.net/package/memcached

 

[digitalpoint]

True... but if you don't have an opcode cacher, your biggest priority would be to get on a server that does.

 

[oldzy]

So it not really needed on a VPS, and APC installed on the server should suffice?

 

[digitalpoint]

Yep... will be faster too because it doesn't have the overhead of needing to make a network connection to memcached.

 

[MattW]

Yep... will be faster too because it doesn't have the overhead of needing to make a network connection to memcached.

I've noticed this as well. I've since stopped Memcache on my servers and using Xcache for everything.

 

[p4guru]

True... but if you don't have an opcode cacher, your biggest priority would be to get on a server that does.

indeed

So it not really needed on a VPS, and APC installed on the server should suffice?

yeah APC for single server setups should suffice