[Gllug] Email programs and mbox format

[Sharon Kimble]

On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 14:29:08 +0000
Huw Lynes <huw-l at moving-picture.com> wrote:

> > > 
> > > > I am currently using Sylpheed-Claws as my main email program and
> > > > it is holding a total of 53,682 emails [which I need to keep for
> > > > research purposes] in mbox format, although the number is
> > > > contantly growing. The only problem is that although I imported
> > > > one mbox into SC for each seperate folder, SC then dissected it
> > > > into lots of little mboxs which is currently taking up about
> > > > 6.5gigs of space. When there is just one mbox for each folder
> > > > they only take up about 700mb of space. Quite a difference!
> > > > 
> > > File space differences will be down to the parameters set on your
> > > filesystem. Since there is a minimum amount of disk space that the
> > > filesystem can allocate a very large number of very small files
> > > can use more disk space. You may be able to tune your filesystem
> > > do deal with this more efficiently.
> > > 
> > > What filesystem are you using?
> > > 
> > Ext 3 fs. Does this help?
> 
> Yes, in that ext3 is probably the worst filesystem for the
> inefficiency with which it stores small files. So you have some
> options. 1) Live with the large amounts of space it's using.

Guess I will stick with this then until Sylpheed-Claws is able to
compress its mbox files. One of the developers told me in the past that
its on their 'To-Do' list. 

> 2) Go back to mbox .

I can always export into one mbox for each folder for archiving
purposes. Its just when you import it into SC, that SC breaks it up into
lots of little mboxs.

Unfortunately I'm stuck with this ext3 format as that is what the distro
set up its '/' folder system as. But as its a 30 gig drive and i've
still got 12gig left I'm not too worried about it.
> 
> Hope you are taking regular backups of this mailbox.
> 
Every night, using flexbackup and cron :)

Thanks,
Sharon.
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