'batch move' of a few thousand mailboxes to different partitions

[Eric Luyten]

Cyrus 2.2.13 on a Solaris 9 server
4 Cyrus spool partitions, 350 GB each, nearing 80% occupation
(Hashing performed on first letter basis of account name)

I have two extra 350 GB partitions ready and 'partition' lines 
already added to /etc/imapd.conf


To spread out the mail data over six partitions I would need 
to move about 350 GB of mail.

Two scenarios :

  a) use rename_mailbox in cyradm

       pro  : mail server can keep on running
       cons : filesystem metadata changes
              no 'batching' method available  (suggestions, anyone ?)
              slow

  b) use 'cp -p -r', update a text dump of mailboxes.db and regenerate

       pros : filesystem metadata does not change
              easily batchable
              significantly faster than method a)
       con  : mail server must be halted for (at least) several hours


Am I overlooking important issues here ?


Eric Luyten, Computing Centre VUB/ULB.