Database/Folder Size Limits

[aarohivi]

Hi,
We are looking at moving Scalix. Currently we use Qmail/SquirrelMail with Outlook/Outlook express clients. Some questions to assist in our evaluation:

1. Does Scalix mail database have a limit? Our current mail database is 70gb with some very large mailboxes.

2. Most of this information is in public folders. There are 4 main public folders divided into over 10,000 sub folders. Again, are there in any limitations in Scalix to prevent this structure.

3. Due to the size and number of folders and messages, we cannot use SquirrelMail in a effective way as a web mail client. It just takes way too long. How does Scalix Web Client cope with a vast amount of folders and messages - it is optimized for fast performance despite the mail box size (in this case public folders).


Thanks for your responses.

[Valerion]

1. Does Scalix mail database have a limit? Our current mail database is 70gb with some very large mailboxes.

Not a problem. The mailstore size is limited by disk space and inodes, rather than by size.

2. Most of this information is in public folders. There are 4 main public folders divided into over 10,000 sub folders. Again, are there in any limitations in Scalix to prevent this structure.

No reason I can think of, but I've never tested with such a layout. I don't foresee any issues.

3. Due to the size and number of folders and messages, we cannot use SquirrelMail in a effective way as a web mail client. It just takes way too long. How does Scalix Web Client cope with a vast amount of folders and messages - it is optimized for fast performance despite the mail box size (in this case public folders).

This will depend on what you consider to be effective. Drawing a GUI widget takes a certain amount of screen real-estate, and drawing 10,000 of them may take a while, and take up lots of space on the folder list. I think your best bet is to download the CE and test it out and see how it works in your environment.

[florian]

I would tend to agree to Valerion; while generally speaking there are no fixed limitaions on the number of folders or mailbox size, certainly performance will vary and the number of messages/objects will be a contributing factor.

Also, expectations are very different based on user community.

Will Scalix be faster than some other systems? yes!
Will Scalix be slower than some other systems? yes! (i.e. the user experience is certainly worse with a client/server type solution such as Scalix when someone directly compares it with a local storage solution such as a POP client downloaded all emssages locally).

Let us know how it went?

Thx,
Florian.