From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat May 26 2:25:20 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from areilly.bpc-users.org (CPE-144-132-234-126.nsw.bigpond.net.au [144.132.234.126]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9B5CC37B423 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 02:25:16 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from areilly@bigpond.net.au) Received: (qmail 2720 invoked by uid 1000); 26 May 2001 09:25:16 -0000 From: "Andrew Reilly" Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 19:25:16 +1000 To: Terry Lambert Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: technical comparison Message-ID: <20010526192516.A2573@gurney.reilly.home> References: <200105252049.NAA13292@usr06.primenet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <200105252049.NAA13292@usr06.primenet.com>; from tlambert@primenet.com on Fri, May 25, 2001 at 08:49:21PM +0000 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 08:49:21PM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote: > There is _no_ performance problem with "the existing implementation", > if you treat "postgres" as "the existing implementation"; it will do > what you want, quickly and effectively, for millions of record keys. Does postgres make a good mail archive database? Can it handle arbitrary record lengths? It couldn't the last time I looked at it. > Why are you treating an FS as if it were a relational database? It > is a tool intended to solve an entirely different problem set. I'm not treating it as a relational database. But if mail messages aren't conceptually "files", then I don't know what they are. One of my personal mail folders has 4400 messages in it, and I've only been collecting that one for a few years. It's not millions, but its a few more than the "500" that I've seen some discuss here as a reasonable limit (why is that reasonable?) and it's many many more than the 72 or so limit available in ADFS. I changed over to Maildirs becuase I like the fact that I can use normal Unix file search and manipulation programs on individual messages, as well as a wider set of MUAs (thanks to courier IMAP...), and because folder opening doesn't bog down when there are a couple of messages with really large attachments in them, the way mbox folders do. > You are bitching about your hammer not making a good screwdriver. If the file system isn't a good place to store files, then what is it good for? Souce code trees only? There are application specific databases available for that too. What have you got left? -- Andrew To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message