Hi, as database programmer I can say that both approaches have benefits and drawbacks.
Database: Pro: fast useage, fast copying Con: if it's hosed, then it's really kaputt. However, most issues should be fixable by deleting the index. Incremental backups are not so easy. Files: Pro: simple, problems are usually easy to fix. Con: slloooowww searches. Try using AppleMail with a mailbox of 100.000 mails. This is just a pain. Somehow, databases got a bad reputation with people using emails. Most likely because of proprietary databases. Stupid Entourage corrupted itself every time I tried to use it for a few months and I only need it for testing. However, modern databases in general don't do corruption very often. Or do you think that big corporations would trust their data to systems that are easily corrupted? Oh, and all modern databases do 2 GB. I do this routinely with bigger databases. Am 11.11.2010 um 17:28 schrieb Jeremy Hughes: > Michael J. Hußmann (11/11/10, 14:58) said: > >> Just try to copy one 1 MB file versus 1000 files of 1 KB each > > How often do you copy or move your mail folder? > >> So I'm all for the monolithic database approach. I don't care if a >> backup needs to copy the whole file - copying a single file is fast. > > Not so fast over a network, and wasteful of backup space. > > Jeremy > > Mit freundlichen Grüßen/Regards Trixi Willius http://www.mothsoftware.com Mail Archiver X: archive, clean and search email http://www.beatrixwillius.de Fractals, 3d landscapes etc.
