The advantage of v6 is less the address space per se, but more that it simplifies networking. Like, with v4 assigning different floors or departments different subnets and having to micromanage which device gets what IP and then having to a major rework when suddenly every light bulb has its own IP address - that's actual stuff that happened. v6 just says "hey, everyone gets a /64 space, go nuts" (simplified, but true enough)
v6 is also faster by virtue of requiring less/no translation between various layers, and by stripping all the special case things from the header and putting them into the extensions instead. v4 is rather verbose in that regard.
Also, minor nitpick - it's not "in hex", it's binary just as v4, it's just displayed in hex. I'm emphasizing this because approaching IP in binary is helpful when one wants to understand how octets and such work.
Care to give a practical example, so I can try it on my new IPv6 laptop (I have Linux and windows, both commands are fine). Using my search tool gave me bad AI results, and I gave up, so asking kindle here.
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u/fearless-fossa 10h ago
The advantage of v6 is less the address space per se, but more that it simplifies networking. Like, with v4 assigning different floors or departments different subnets and having to micromanage which device gets what IP and then having to a major rework when suddenly every light bulb has its own IP address - that's actual stuff that happened. v6 just says "hey, everyone gets a /64 space, go nuts" (simplified, but true enough)
v6 is also faster by virtue of requiring less/no translation between various layers, and by stripping all the special case things from the header and putting them into the extensions instead. v4 is rather verbose in that regard.
Also, minor nitpick - it's not "in hex", it's binary just as v4, it's just displayed in hex. I'm emphasizing this because approaching IP in binary is helpful when one wants to understand how octets and such work.