dovecot - Oct 2022 - mdbox vs. maildir format

> 
> i am considering changing my mailbox format from maildir to mdbox. the
> reason for this is mainly, b/c i have (a) multiple large mailboxes with
> tens of thousands of mail files, and (b) most of these mails files have
> a
> size significantly smaller than the sector size of the disk.
> 
> so, since the emails themselves are only about nGB large, the disk space
> used is at least twice as much, if not even three times.
> 
> i know, hard disk space is 'cheap', but still...
Also think about iops. rsyncing 10GB of small files takes a lot longer than 10
1GB files.
> 
> but then i read at
> 
> 	https://doc.dovecot.org/admin_manual/mailbox_formats/dbox/
> 
> the following:
> 
> 	[...] you must not lose the dbox index files, as they can?t be
> 	regenerated without data loss.
I have read this also, and was also worried about this, but when I look at the
flat m.988 file, I still have quite a lot of useful data there.

Received: from xxxxx (localhost [127.0.0.1])
     by xxxxxxx (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id 29IAeeZw2293734
     (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT)
     for <xxxxxxxxxx>; Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:40:40 +0200
X-Virus-Status: Clean
X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.103.5 at xxxxxxx
Received: (from xxxxxx at localhost)
     by xxxxxxxxxx (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) id 29IAeeoF2293733
     for xxxxxxx; Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:40:40 +0200
From: xxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <202210181040.29IAeeoF2293733 at xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:40:40 +0200
To: <xxxxxxx>
Subject: test
User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.5 7/5/10
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Received-SPF: neutral (spf not configured)


test


R634e82ab
V7e3
G18424b37ab824e63be3a0000fe361dd3
BINBOX

On 10/18/22 18:46, Marc wrote:
>> you must not lose the dbox index files, as they can?t be
>> 	regenerated without data loss.
> I have read this also, and was also worried about this, but when I look at
the flat m.988 file, I still have quite a lot of useful data there.
"Note that with dbox the Index files contain significant data which is held
nowhere else. Index files for both sdbox and mdbox contain message flags and
keywords. For mdbox, the index file also contains the map_uids which link (via
the ?map index?) to the actual message data. This data cannot be automatically
recreated, so it is important that Index files are treated with the same care as
message data files."

https://doc.dovecot.org/admin_manual/mailbox_formats/dbox/

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