does dedicatd parition for mails make sense ?

[john99]

Hello

I am going to partition the OS for Zimbra (OSS/FOSS). My idea is to have ZCS saved it's mails to a dedicated partition (in oder they would survive a possible reinstallation of Zimbra)


Questions:
Does a dedicated partition make sense for that purpose, or is there no way than to take/shut Zimbra down, backup the mails to a folder at my choice and to import them after reinstalling Zimbra (from scratch)?


Thank you for your feedback! John

[uxbod]

Why not just backup the whole of the /opt/zimbra tree ? When you say re-install ZCS do you mean completely ? ie. No /opt/zimbra at all ? Only reason I see for segregating the datastore is from a performance perspective or SAN/NAS mounting.

[fcash]

Separating the different bits of the system is a good idea, as it allows you to balance the IO across disks. Having separate disks (or arrays) for the OS, for /opt/zimbra, for /opt/zimbra/store, /opt/zimbra/log, and /opt/zimbra/backup is a good idea.

Personally, I like to put the OS onto CF or USB sticks using software RAID1 (configured to boot from either disk). This rarely requires more than 2 GB since a minimal install with SSH is all that's required.

Then you can dedicate your fastest disks/arrays to /opt/zimbra/store and /opt/zimbra/log. And your biggest disks/arrays to /opt/zimbra, /opt/zimbra/backup, and HSM.

At the very least, /opt/zimbra/store and /opt/zimbra/backup need to be on separate disks.

[john99]

Thank's a lot for your advise. I will make the suggested partitions in the production environment.
At the moment we intend to play with Zimbra with some few users.


Question:
If you had only 20GB space on SAS disk available, how much space would you
assign to the following partitions?


/opt/zimbra/store
/opt/zimbra/log

/opt/zimbra
/opt/zimbra/backup



Thank you very much in advance for you help!

John