Hi Stan-
(Stan gives a great run-down on the economics of using a NetApp or even homegrown NFS filer versus using an object storage backend.)
Tom I'm sorry I wasted your time with my initial response.
No, you absolutely didn't waste my time, and it was certainly of great advantage to the list. I think it was a great write-up of the advantages and disadvantages of each different option. I know my situation isn't the standard one...
I am quite familiar with NetApp, and EMC - I used to have a number of Celera file servers back in my BigFish/FrontBridge days.
But now I'm in a situation where I have dozens of servers with spare storage bays and unused CPU cycles sitting in data centers where the power is already provisioned, and a DFS is what makes most sense for me now.
Had I known these details above up front I wouldn't have responded. I incorrectly assumed you were designing new infrastructure, wading into new waters, because few are yet to deploy DFS for mailbox storage these days.
I think it's great that you did respond, and thanks for doing so. I know that this is wading into new waters...I'm just hoping I'm not really the very first :)
So, I would like to ask once again- is anyone on the list using the object storage plugin for dovecot at any reasonably large scale, whether it's an in-house storage solution or S3?
I'm hoping, as I'd guess you are, that someone will respond who is already doing this. If someone has it working well it offers others more storage options, which is always a good thing. Whether it costs more or less than the other solutions, it may still be a better option for some folks either way.
Dovecot's commercial arm is certainly marketing the object storage. I'm just hoping someone is actually using it and can offer some guidance.
Tom