[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [ProgSoc] ProgSoc migration



On 26/02/2008, at 9:39 AM, Robert Howard wrote:
I'm a wee bit biased, as I've always found mbox very slow and
cumbersome to use, and would prefer to be able to manage my mail
without having the time to go for a coffee and make a sandwich while
waiting for a mailbox write to finish.


Any opinions either way?
Yeah, in my opinion mbox is faster.

However, in other people's opinion maildir is faster.

Here's a benchmark that compares an implementation of Maildir (Courier, which I have tried, in the past) with an implementation of mbox (UW, which I have also tried, and abandoned, in the past -- I now use dovecot's mbox implementation):
http://www.courier-mta.org/mbox-vs-maildir/

It concludes that for some things Courier is faster than UW, and for other things they are "except in some specific instances -- just as fast".
Of course, this benchmark didn't actually compare the formats, it  
compared implementations. Dovecot, for example, uses an index, which  
should go some way to reducing memory usage -- but since I haven't  
actually tested, I don't actually know beyond "wfm".
In conclusion it's nice when people test things. Unfortunately, on the  
Web there is approximately one benchmark and fifty thousand people  
talking about how great maildir is. So, until that happens, I  
personally won't be affected by the format you choose (I use  
a .forward file). Therefore: go nuts.
However, any clients should definitely (as Anand pointed out) be using  
IMAP, so that the server can take advantage of its own caches. Clients  
directly accessing mail spools seems rather anachronistic these days.

-
You are subscribed to the progsoc mailing list. To unsubscribe, send a
message containing "unsubscribe" to progsoc-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If you are having trouble, ask owner-progsoc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for help.