Storage space is getting low

[aiko]

Hello,

our storage space is decreasing fast. The hardware is old but still doing fine (2x Quad Core + 32 GB RAM). We have only a few users (<150). Each user has 20GB and more in his/her Inbox. Enforcing quota is no option. The server has a dedicated network card to access a storage network which is used for backups. We could easily attach a 1 TB volume to the server via NFS.

Questions:

Would HFS be an option? So, lets say, everything older than 2 years moves to the NFS storage. What are the impacts? Very important question to us: If we move to a new hardware, are we able to revert this step easily? So, I would like to disable the HFS later and move all mails back to the main storage.

Has anybody longterm experiences with HFS?

Kind regards

[Alupis]

is this a linux server? Are you using LVM? is this a solo box or do you have another secondary?

If no LVM, and you can afford some downtime, you could easily clone the disks or raid to a set of larger disks, then expand the partition to utilize the new space. If LVM and you have space to plug in a new drive, just let the LVM expand onto the new disk and use the free space... easy. If the answers are no and no and no to the above, then you will have to look at the route you are thinking right now.

I would not use HFS personally... its an old filesystem that does not utilize modern enhancements that something like ext3 or ext4 use or ZFS. Plus HFS has a file limit of 65,535 files.... meaning you can not store more files that this no matter how large the volume is... and it does not use journaling which can result in data corruption. I'm not sure how you would go about exporting emails from the server (if a single file like some database or something or rather a bunch of .eml files...), but if they are important to keep, I would look at a better option.

Basically HFS has a lot of the same problems the FAT filesystem has... and therefore I would not recommend it for any production use.

[aiko]

That box has
- 2x 300GB for the root filesystem. (Hardware Raid1)
- 2x 146GB for /opt/zimbra/index. (Hardware Raid1)
- 6x 146GB for /opt/zimbra/store. (Hardware Raid5 + Spare)

In the end I would't have setup an exclusive Raid for /opt/zimbra/index... But now it is like it is.

And I'm sorry, I mixed the acronyms. I meant HSM, not HFS...

-> Hierarchical Storage Management: Category:Hierarchical Storage Management - Zimbra :: Wiki

It is used to move older mails to slower disks. And NFS came to my mind.

[Alupis]

ah... thats a very different story indeed! - I have to admit I have never attempted this nor know much about HSM... however after reading through the link at: HSM - Zimbra :: Wiki .... it sounds like it would work for what you are attempting to do...

I've had luck with NFS in the past on other projects and think its a pretty decent technology... and the HSM sounds like its really just a way for your Zimbra server to query records from across the network to your NFS share... to me it sounds like it would work... but what do I know? lol.

if no one else posts back... or one of the Zimbra Admins... then I would recommend (if possible) attempt this first in a Virtual environment so you can test without endangering your production environment. You could even load in emails from you current server and then push them to a NFS volume and see how it works out... (at least that is how I would do things if it were my server and it had critical data). Might sound like a lot of work... but its worthwhile if you can avoid a catastrophe!