Re: Mount options for Optimizing ext2/ext3 performance with Maildir's
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 02:15, Ian Forbes <iforbes@zsd.co.za> wrote:
> Is ext3 faster or slower than ext2?
If you use an external journal on a fast device then ext3 should be much
faster.
> What mount options give the best performance, "noatime" "data=journal" ?
noatime is (IMHO) mandatory for a Maildir based mail server. It seriously
decreases the load while not removing any feature that you desire. Make sure
that you set noatime on the root file system as well as the mail store,
otherwise you get a lot of writes to the root FS every time a POP server is
started.
> Currently I have everything in one big root partition. If I mount it with
> "noatime" will a hole bunch of things stop working, like the automatic
> reloading of files in /etc/cron.d/ ?
Nothing will stop working. cron uses the mtime.
finger won't tell you the inactivity time of sessions from users who login at
the console if /dev is on a file system with noatime, this is no real loss
(and udev can fix this).
> With the options data=journal / data=ordered / data=writeback which will
> give me the best performance and which has the biggest chance of data loss
> in a crash situation. I think I can live with mail that is being delivered
> at the moment of a crash getting corrupted, provided that the server is
> never rendered un-bootable and that no other files are effected.
I think that you will have to do your own benchmarks of this.
> The system is running with a 2.4.18. Is there anything to be gained from
> upgrading to a later 2.4 or a 2.6 kernel.
If you use a 2.6 kernel then you get directory hashing which can significantly
improve performance when you have large numbers of directory entries. This
will help if you have a large number of user mail store directories in one
directory, if you have a large number of email files in one Maildir
directory, or if you have a large number of temporary files in one spool
directory under /var/spool. Generally you can expect some significant
performance increases from 2.6.x kernels.
--
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