An Ext4 question...

[Eric Shubert]

Jim March wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> Does anybody know what happens when you stash a huge number of tiny
> files in Ext4?  Does it store them efficiently the way ReiserFS does?
> 
> I ask because I'm running into limitations on mailbox sized with
> Thunderbird and MBox, and was considering jumping to something based
> on MailDir, which as far as I can tell has bigger mailbox limits than
> MBox.  But given MailDir's approach of one file per message, block
> size issues will get really wild'n'wooly unless Ext4 handles that
> better.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Jim

I don't know about ext4, but ext3 handles fairly large maildirs just 
fine. I'm using dovecot on a qmail-toaster server, and have no problem 
with some maildir folders with 7k+ messages (number of messages, not 
sizes). IIRC, ext3 has a limit of 32k or so files in a folder.

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'