I'm sure there are a few storage vendors who can scale that
high, EMC, Clariion, Compaq(DEC)?, etc. You would never
attach that amount of bandwidth to one server anyway
though, the I/O would be horrible, even with something
like a Sun E10000 which has a few PCI busses on each
of it's 16 separate 4 processor system boards. I work on a
just such a machine with just 5 terabytes of EMC storage
with 5 gigs of cache memory and multiple load-balanced
fibre channel controllers to each cabinet under Veritas
Volume Manager and it would never handle the kind of load
you describe. If you don't already know what you would
need to handle a load like that then you probably ought
to call in a consultant who's experienced in that type of
thing.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Hassan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 1:43 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Scalable Mail Solution
Hi,
I have used Qmail for over 3 years now and I love it. Now I have came across
one project, building a Mail server to handle around 5-6 million users with
a 10 meg mailbox each (I use vpopmail www.inter7.com for the pop server and
virtual domain part). Now multiplying 10MB x 5000000 users = 50million megs,
which is about 50,000 gigs. Is their such a thing as a 50 terrabyte hard
drive? Well, my users are all in one domain, so I cannot split the domains
across several HDD's. Secondly, what if 2 1/2 million users simultaneously
hit the server, would the server handle it? with a quad p-III Xeon 1ghz and
4 GB or ram and a OC connection.
Well, how does hotmail or yahoo do it? I am sure they load blanace across
multiple servers, but how?
I know all about load balancing with dns, etc. across multiple web servers
for example, but with mail, a specific user has to login to the same box
that hosts his mailbox everytime, and mail arriving from outside world to
this user has to arrive to the same box also.
If anyone out there has gone through something like this, I would appreciate
it a lot if you hint me with a clue :)
P.S. Please cc me your reply, as I am not subscribed to the list.
Best Regards,
Tim
