hardware sizing for a large mail installation?

[Mark Blackman]

On 27 Sep 2004, at 15:54, John Madden wrote:

> Someone on the linuxmanagers list suggested I post my question here, so
> here goes:
>
> I'm looking for pointers (past experience in particular) for sizing a 
> mail
> server for a large-ish mail install based on postfix, cyrus, 
> amavisd-new,
> clamav, spamassassin, and web mail (most likely imp) serving around 
> 100k
> mailboxes.  I estimate I'll need to be able to pass through the whole
> chain around 40msgs/sec continuously to be on the safe side.  If 
> possible,
> I'd like to do this on a single server.  Cyrus murder probably isn't an
> option, but I think I could swing a separate box to do the content
> filtering.  Would, say, a 4-cpu Xeon with ~8GB RAM suffice for the
> MTA/IMAP combination?

I/O, I/O, I/O -- it's off to work we go!!

mail systems need primarily disk bandwidth. Get a killer disk array
(fibre-channel or SCSI) and that will keep you happy. The Xeon
is nice, but it's disk bandwidth you *need*. I can recommend
the StorageTek D-series disk systems, but a bit expensive.

http://www.storagetek.com/products/category_page2004.html

>
> Thanks,
>   John
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> John Madden
> UNIX Systems Engineer
> Ivy Tech State College
> jmadden at ivytech.edu
>
>
> ---
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