MBOX-Line: From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Mon Jun 14 09:58:29 2010
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:44 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] IMAP MOVE extension
In-Reply-To: <201006112352.05642.witold.krecicki@firma.o2.pl>
References: <201006110854.37969.witold.krecicki@firma.o2.pl>
	<201006112113.56572.witold.krecicki@firma.o2.pl>
	<alpine.OSX.2.00.1006111214020.662@hsinghsing.panda.com>
	<201006112352.05642.witold.krecicki@firma.o2.pl>
Message-ID: <alpine.OSX.1.10.1006140942380.2640@mbp.lyndon.corp.flock.com>

> COPY is by definition a slow operation. Using hardlinks etc. is a performance
> hack, not a normal method.

When I maintained Esys' IMAP server, a 'single instance' message store was 
*the* most widely requested feature from our customer base. This was in 
1997, and I doubt we were the first to do it.

The driver for this feature was the quota issue; the backend message store 
was fast enough that hardlinks didn't noticeably speed things up. Note 
that even with the single instance store, it is still necessary to 
perform a copy of the file if the source and destination mailboxes reside
on different filesystems.

I cannot understand your claim that using link() in this case is a "hack." 
What is it you think link() is for?

--lyndon

