Seth Mattinen put forth on 11/7/2009 3:18 AM: > devel anaconda wrote: >> It disables fsync() on each incoming mail. Plus, if I mount my ext3 >> partition with option commit=30 or even commit=100, can it helps a bit? >> > > > Have you tried a filesystem other than ext3 like Reiser or XFS? The > performance of ext3 really, really sucks if you have a lot of files in > one directory as a mail spool is bound to have.
I'd stay away from Reiser, for multiple reasons, but XFS would definitely be an improvement over ext3. However, changing file systems alone isn't going to solve his problem--it won't even double his throughput, and he needs something like at least a 3x increase in disk throughput at a minimum. Unless he changes his filters so as to not write so darn many spool files, he will absolutely require more spindles. SSD is an option for speed, but I doubt he'd want to spend the money required for 100+ GB of SSD. I'd say he needs at least 3 more SCSI drives in a Linux RAID 0 setup, or 6 more drives in a Linux RAID 10 setup, with XFS atop those. IMHO, his next step should be adding a couple of 74GB 10K or 15K RPM drives into his two empty disk bays, configure for RAID 0 with XFS atop that, and test. If that's still not enough, then he should go with something like that cheap 14 drive external array I previously mentioned, or SSD if he's flush with cash. -- Stan
