We're a site who has been using IMAP with mbox style mail "folders"
for a decade. It's obvious that as we boost mail quotas, mbox "does
not scale". Thus, we are planning for a conversion to Cyrus, on Linux.

For planning purposes, I'd like to get input from Cyrus sites as to
issues they've encountered in performing backups and restorals,
particularly with coherency, given that each message becomes an
individual file. The Many Small Files issue is apparent, but there
are probably other things that sites have learned the hard way that
could help others. One unobvious issue I can think of is how to best
perform mail investigations via restorals, as called upon in
subpoenas. (A search of the ADSM-L archives turns up next to nothing
on Cyrus and TSM.)

I'd be happy to hear any other practical recommendations for
efficiently implementing Cyrus, based upon site experiences (disk
arrangement, file system type, directory architecture, etc.). Whereas
that would be off the TSM topic per se, feel free to email me
directly (rbs AT bu DOT edu).

   thanks, Richard Sims