[Dovecot] New mailbox format vs. ReiserFS

Tom Metro tmetro+dovecot at vl.com
Sat Sep 24 04:38:41 EEST 2005


Marc Perkel wrote:
> Just curious - have any of you tried the ReiserFS file system with 
> Maildir? I would think that it should make maildir a lot faster and more 
> efficient.

The proposed mailbox format does seem overly complicated and like a 
problem that would be better solved at the file system layer.

Lots of performance problems come down to making a decision about how 
best to use some underlying resource, and often the answer ends up being 
added complication in the application layer, but usually that's because 
there isn't a better solution available in a lower layer.

In this case, I'd recommend the client funding this development first 
give file system optimization a shot before paying for the development 
of a bunch of code that only serves the purpose of compensating for file 
system deficiencies.

  -Tom


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