On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 10:17:57AM -0600, Kyle Wheeler wrote: > Now, I'm assuming that you're storing your mbox locally on a standard > unix filesystem rather than on an NFS-mount or on an MS-DOS partition > or something similarly weird.
Does mbox have issues on MS-DOS partitions? I wasn't aware of any (though you need to be careful about using mixed case). I was aware that maildir does, because on MS filesystems, you can't use ':' in a path. > And as long as you avoid those, you can be assured that using mbox > is *safe*. It's not *efficient* (because everyone who touches the > mbox must lock the file first), but it is safe. I really hate when people say stuff like this. It's true that you have to lock the file before you *write* to it, but even for busy mailboxes, the user will basically never notice this, unless maybe he's still reading mail on a PDP-11 with a bunch of other people. Plus, while maildir doesn't need to lock, it does need to open(2) every individual message, whether you're reading or writing, which more than makes up for not having to lock in terms of efficiency lossage. Both folder formats are efficient at some things, and less efficient at others. Which one will perorm better for you depends a lot on your usage patterns and the underlying filesystem. Fans of maildir like to sell it as being inherently better than mbox in every way, and that's simply false. I use both, about 50% each, because for my usage patterns, maildir is better about half the time, and mbox is better the other half. [This is why the fact that Mutt behaves (or mostly behaved) differently for the two formats has always been a pet peeve of mine.] I was about to write a blurb about how locking on NFS isn't really *that* bad (anymore)... but yeah, it is. ;-) In modern, homogenous environments with well-behaved apps, odds of data loss are only slightly worse than they would be if you took NFS out of the picture, i.e. it's really only an issue in server failure modes, but that tends to be when data loss occurs regardless of NFS... NFS + mbox increases the odds of loss occuring only slightly (with well-behaved apps), but makes the odds of the impact being serious much higher (it's unlikely, but you might lose your entire mail folder). Trouble is, in practice there's no such thing as a modern, homogenous environment, where all the apps are well-behaved! :) -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience.
pgpMf6XGdtKeY.pgp
Description: PGP signature
