Derek Broughton wrote: > Randy Kramer wrote: > > >>On Tuesday 27 September 2005 09:27 am, Derek Broughton wrote: >> >>>Why do you think Maildir would perform worse for folders with thousands >>>of >>>emails? Everything I've read suggests it will perform better - and more >>>reliably. >> >>First a quick (but dumb, I should look it up) question. Does Linux do the >>thing that Dos/Windows does (used to do?) of each file requiring a minimum >>space (one cluster?), or does it vary by filesystem? > > > It varies decidedly between the different filesystems.
I think the restriction that you're more likely to run into is the number of inodes available (which are predetermined when you setup an ext2/3 filesystem). However, ReiserFS is *much* more efficient when you have thousands of files in one directory, because it uses a hashing algorithm to determine where the required file is (or starts) in the filesystem. This is something I know about (hashing) based on my experience with Pick database systems, which also use hashing and are incredibly fast at keyed record retrieval (as well as entire file/table traversal). I've used ReiserFS in the past mainly for it's journalling capability, which at the time was more complete than ext3's (this was on a RH6.2 system with the 2.4.x series kernels). As my customers at the time were very likely to simply switch the system off (for any reason, including not knowing how a particular application works that they'd wandered into), this feature saw a lot of (successful) use! [snip] -- PeteJ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
