Talk:Maildir

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Contents 1 requires a high number of inodes 2 space-inefficient 3 Needs Ads and Disads 4 {{Infobox file format}} 5 Criticism

[edit] requires a high number of inodes

It should be noted somewhere that the maildir format requires a high number of inodes on your filesystem, which can become a big issue if you are planning to support a very high number of messages. --Thoric 15:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] space-inefficient

It is weird that the article does not discuss pros/cons of storing each msg in a separate file. If the filesystem has a large cluster size, this could be quite space-inefficient, which might matter if a large number of msgs are being stored. And is the first sentence correct or misleading? To what extent is this "only" a spooling format (temporary) vs. a long-term msg storage format? mbox is definitely used for long-term msg storage. So is maildir directly analogous, or just sort of similar, in usage/function? Do mbox-based systems like Eudora and Thunderbird use mbox formats for spooling of to-be-processed msgs? 69.87.201.163 00:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs to discuss block sizes and the effect of using lots of small files, with a link to Comparison of file systems. As you point out, describing maildir as a "spool" file format does need to be re-phrased, as it is used for many IMAP servers. mbox vs maildir is a bit like vi vs emacs. Last weekend I created Category:E-mail storage formats in order to collate all of the formats, but I ended up getting a bit sidetracked wading through and reorganising Category:E-mail. A new article E-mail storage format may also be useful. John Vandenberg 05:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs Ads and Disads

I've just done a basic cleanup and correction run. I agree with the above points, and I think they should be included in and Advantages/Disadvantages set of headings. There's a lot to go in there, including things that many people don't immediately think of, such as the possibilities of using standard filesystem tools for backup.

Zope3 uses Maildirs for delivery spools, someone might like to add an up-to-date summary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DanShearer (talk • contribs) 21:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

Dan Shearer 21:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{Infobox file format}}

I would like to put an infobox on each email storage format, but {{Infobox file format}} doesnt suit maildir very well. Anyone know of other directory-centric formats that I could use to analyse this further. John Vandenberg 23:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

The section "This analysis misconstrues the purpose of step 2." appears to break Neutral point of view (NPOV). This criticism seems to ignore multi-host environments in which PID and temporary file name can clash. A simple clarification of the kind that in a network environment with unique host IDs already taken in account on one host the following problems can still occur, would suffice.

StevenMcCoy 13:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)