Loopback filesystems for mail storage

[Kumar Appaiah <a.kumar@alumni.iitm.ac.in>]

Hi.

This may be slightly OT, but I hope people don't mind much.

I'd like to come up with an efficient way to store and access my
e-mail using a loopback file, so I wanted some advice from experienced
people on the list. Currently, I've been using only vanilla ext[34]
file systems, but my Maildir has now grown to a large size. So, I
wanted to come up with a better solution.

One approach I thought of is a loopback file. That makes things
simpler, since I don't really have to repartition, and backing up is
rather easy. So, here are my questions:

1. What is the best filesystem for Maildirs with several tens of
thousands of messages?

2. Is there a massive performance hit if I use a file mounted as a
loopback filesystem, rather than a physical one? I don't mind a small
hit for my desktop use, but if it nixes the whole utility of changing
the filesystem, then I'd like to know.

3. What filesystem would allow quick file access? I'd like to be able
to view the Maildirs in Mutt, and index and search it using
notmuch. XFS is something searches on the interwebs revealed, but I've
also heard people mention Btrfs, JFS etc. If this is too long to
answer, I'd appreciate a pointer to a resource that I could read.

Thanks.

Kumar
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