Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261763AbVBXDYc (ORCPT ); Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:24:32 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261614AbVBXDYc (ORCPT ); Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:24:32 -0500 Received: from mserv2.uoregon.edu ([128.223.142.41]:54428 "EHLO smtp.uoregon.edu") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261763AbVBXDY3 (ORCPT ); Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:24:29 -0500 Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:24:27 -0800 (PST) From: Joel Jaeggli X-X-Sender: joelja@twin.uoregon.edu To: Ron Peterson cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: ext2/3 files per directory limits In-Reply-To: <20050224031107.GA8656@mtholyoke.edu> Message-ID: References: <20050224031107.GA8656@mtholyoke.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1885 Lines: 42 On Wed, 23 Feb 2005, Ron Peterson wrote: > I would like to better understand ext2/3's performance characteristics. > > I'm specifically interested in how ext2/3 will handle a /var/spool/mail > directory w/ ~6000 mbox format inboxes, handling approx 1GB delivered as > 75,000 messages daily. Virtually all access is via imap, w/ approx > ~1000 imapd processes running during peak load. Local delivery is via > procmail, which by default uses both kernel-supported locking calls and > .lock files. At some point it makes sense to subdivide you mail load because serialization of i/o on that one filesystem becomes a bigger issue than the performance of your filesystem... We deliver into mbox formatted mailboxes inside users homedirs, some folks do a similar thing with maildir. In the end you can on make one filesystem so fast. beyond that you need more filesystems to acheive any kind of reasonable scaling... > I understand that various tuning parameters will have an impact, > e.g. putting the journal on a separate device, setting the noatime mount > option, etc. I also understand that there are other mailbox formats and > other strategies for locating mail spools (e.g. in user's home > directories). > > I'm interested in people's thoughts on these issues, but I'm mostly > interested in whether or not the scenario I described falls within > ext2/3's designed capabilities. > > Best. > > -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joel Jaeggli Unix Consulting joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu GPG Key Fingerprint: 5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/