On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 09:59:57AM -0400, Kumar Appaiah wrote: > Hi. > > This may be slightly OT, but I hope people don't mind much. > > I'd like to come up with an efficient way to store and access my > e-mail using a loopback file, so I wanted some advice from experienced > people on the list. Currently, I've been using only vanilla ext[34] > file systems, but my Maildir has now grown to a large size. So, I > wanted to come up with a better solution. > > One approach I thought of is a loopback file. That makes things > simpler, since I don't really have to repartition, and backing up is > rather easy. So, here are my questions: > > 1. What is the best filesystem for Maildirs with several tens of > thousands of messages? > > 2. Is there a massive performance hit if I use a file mounted as a > loopback filesystem, rather than a physical one? I don't mind a small > hit for my desktop use, but if it nixes the whole utility of changing > the filesystem, then I'd like to know. > > 3. What filesystem would allow quick file access? I'd like to be able > to view the Maildirs in Mutt, and index and search it using > notmuch. XFS is something searches on the interwebs revealed, but I've > also heard people mention Btrfs, JFS etc. If this is too long to > answer, I'd appreciate a pointer to a resource that I could read.
Oh, and this: 4. Would it be easy to enlarge/grow a file that contains a filesystem? i.e., if I create a container file of 5 GB and want to expand it to 7 GB? Of course, I don't mind creating a new file for 7 GB and moving the mails as well… Thanks. Kumar -- We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated. -- seen in someone's .signature -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130817140114.ga7...@bluemoon.alumni.iitm.ac.in