[Discuss] Stalwart email & DB vs file system for message storage

[markw at mohawksoft.com (markw at mohawksoft.com)]

>
> And I remain unconvinced that a DB isn't well suited to email messages
> since it works for Google's Gmail.
>
> I'd need to see some *evidence* that it isn't a good idea.

At google gmail does indeed store the email metadata in a database (I
think it is spanner, but I'm not sure), but it stores the email itself in
shared storage along with videos, photos, and google drive.

>
> Stalwart won the Github funding prize so they'll be presenting at
> FOSSDEM this year, hopefully with results from their attempts to scale
> up to "Gmail scale" with prize money spent on cloud infrastructure to
> test with millions(?) of users connecting up.

"Millions of users?" Gmail has BILLIONS of accounts sending trillions of
emails. In 2012 there were only 425 million users, but billions today.

Once you can scale past a particular point, it is virtually only limited
by money. What I mean by this is that once you've ironed out the
distribution, eliminated locking, can add storage as needed, and all that,
it really is just adding machines, storage, and infrastructure.