mdbox vs. maildir format

[Marc]

> 
> i am considering changing my mailbox format from maildir to mdbox. the
> reason for this is mainly, b/c i have (a) multiple large mailboxes with
> tens of thousands of mail files, and (b) most of these mails files have
> a
> size significantly smaller than the sector size of the disk.
> 
> so, since the emails themselves are only about nGB large, the disk space
> used is at least twice as much, if not even three times.
> 
> i know, hard disk space is 'cheap', but still...

Also think about iops. rsyncing 10GB of small files takes a lot longer than 10 1GB files.

> 
> but then i read at
> 
> 	https://doc.dovecot.org/admin_manual/mailbox_formats/dbox/
> 
> the following:
> 
> 	[...] you must not lose the dbox index files, as they can’t be
> 	regenerated without data loss.

I have read this also, and was also worried about this, but when I look at the flat m.988 file, I still have quite a lot of useful data there.

Received: from xxxxx (localhost [127.0.0.1])
     by xxxxxxx (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id 29IAeeZw2293734
     (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT)
     for <xxxxxxxxxx>; Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:40:40 +0200
X-Virus-Status: Clean
X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.103.5 at xxxxxxx
Received: (from xxxxxx at localhost)
     by xxxxxxxxxx (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) id 29IAeeoF2293733
     for xxxxxxx; Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:40:40 +0200
From: xxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <202210181040.29IAeeoF2293733 at xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:40:40 +0200
To: <xxxxxxx>
Subject: test
User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.5 7/5/10
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Received-SPF: neutral (spf not configured)


test


R634e82ab
V7e3
G18424b37ab824e63be3a0000fe361dd3
BINBOX