[Dovecot] SQL mail storage - yes yes yes!

[Charles Marcus]

On 3/31/2007 Stephen Lee wrote:
> WRT size of the db, what about keeping just the message headers and 
> indices in the db and the body as a file? This is akin to some
> content management systems where the file info is in a db and the
> content resides as a file. Don't know what the logistics and
> performance issues are though. Clearly SQL mail storage is not for
> everyone.

One of the biggest advantages I can think of is single instance storage.

Break the message into its constituent parts (headers, body, 
attachments), and now you can forget about the idiots that send a 15MB 
attachment to everyone in the company - resulting in 523 copies of that 
attachment in the mail system - with SQL storage (done right) - you only 
have one copy - 15MB instead of 523 x 15MB.

Timo? Can you elaborate on how thi sis implemented? Is the message 
broken up into parts? How hard would it be to implement single instance 
storage if an SQL db is used for the storage?

Thanks for all your efforts!

Charles