If you run the following example on Linux and compare the
Client VM versus the Server VM, you will notice that the with the client VM,
the testcase does not terminate :

public class Hailstone {

        public static void main(String[] args) {
        //        System.out.println(827370449 * 3 + 1);
                long start  = System.currentTimeMillis();
                int min = 2;
                int max = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
                System.out.println("maxMove:" + maxMoves(min, max));
                                
                System.out.println("time difference: " +
(System.currentTimeMillis() - start));
                
        }
        /**
         * Imperative implementation that returns the length hailstone moves
for a given number.
         */
        public static long hailstoneLengthImp(long n) {
                long moves = 0;
                while (n != 1) {
                        assert n > 1;
                        if (isEven(n)) {
                                n = n / 2;
                        } else {
                                n = 3 * n + 1;
                        }
                        ++moves;
                }
                return moves;
        }

        private static boolean isEven(long n) {
                return n % 2 == 0;
        }

        /**
         * Returns the maximum length of the hailstone sequence for numbers
         * between min to max.
         *
         * For rec1 - Assume that min is bigger than max.
         */
        public static long maxMoves(int min, int max) {
                long maxmoves = 0;
                for (int n = min; n <= max; n++) {
                        System.out.println(n);
                        long moves = hailstoneLengthImp(n);
                        if (moves > maxmoves) {
                                maxmoves = moves;
                        }
                }
                return maxmoves;
        }
}

% java -client -version
java version "1.6.0_21-ea"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_21-ea-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 17.0-b15, mixed mode)