[Dovecot] SQL mail storage - yes yes yes!

[Marc Perkel]

Stephen Lee wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-03-31 at 19:30 +0200, Martin Hudec wrote:
> <snip>
>   
>> Well imagine that we have 100 users in company, each of them has 200M 
>> mailbox usually filled at least to 150M. That gives us 15G database (I 
>> am not counting administrative overhead like indexes etc.).
>>
>> Lovely. What would such database solution require, for example running 
>> on MySQL (usual database for many of the small businesses out there), I 
>> cannot truly say now and I am afraid of it. It would be a hard beast. In 
>> terms of maintenance and also of resources requirements.
>>
>> When using mail server with maildir/mailbox we have two components: mail 
>> server software alone and disk subsystem. When using database we would 
>> get mail server software plus database software and disk subsystem. Thus 
>> introducing new component with new unknown behaviors in certain situations.
>>
>> Martin
>>     
>
> 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.
>
> Stephen
>
>
>   

Of course it's not for everyone. mbox wins for quick, small, and simple. 
MySQL would be for those who need what SQL offers. There's lots of 
features in Dovecot that I don't use, but I'm glad are in there.