[Dovecot] Question about "slow" storage but fast cpus, plenty of ram and dovecot

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting javierdemiguel at us.es:

> in our vmware esx cluster. We want to minimize disk I/O, what config
> options should we use. We can "exchange" CPU & RAM to minimize disk i/o.

Depends on what you are doing -- pop3, imap, both, deliver or some other
LDA?  Do you care if the indexes are lost on reboot or not?

You might try putting the indexes in, memory (either via dovecot settings
or a RAM DISK) or on SSD.

You could also try using ext3/4 with an external journal on a SSD.

"SSD" would preferably be an enterprise SSD, but it could be a lesser
SSD, or even a USB memory stick (replaced periodically).  Which is right
depends on your needs and budget.

Failing that, you should probably put the indexes on the fastest disks
possible (might be local, might be iscsi, you'd have to benchmark).

>  Should we change to dovecot 2.0?

For any new system, I'd start with the most recent dovecot 2.x version.
How easy that is if you are upgrading depends on what version you run now.

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Go Longhorns!