Re: Delete 4 million files

[Sam Leon <debian@net153.net>]

kj wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> This might seem like a stupid question, but I'm hoping there's a better 
> way.
>
> I discovered a Maildir on my server with 4+ million mails in.  The 
> result of a cronjob that runs every minute - this has been fixed.
>
> Now, I've been running the usual find . -type f -exec rm {} \;
> but this is going at about 700,000 per day.  Would simply doing an rm 
> -rf on the Maildir be quicker?  Or is there a better way?
>
> Thanks
>
> --kj


Most everyone here is recommending just plain old rm -rf

I might add that once you start the rm process that you find the pid of 
it and then lower its priority with renice so that away your whole 
system won't be slowed down while it works.

Sam