Mail Server Performance

[Robert Dinse <nanook@eskimo.com>]

     There are two factors that really contribute heavily to the load on the
mail server, one is all the spam that people get, and the second is people
leaving large amounts of mail in their INBOX. 

     Everytime you start a pop session, your entire INBOX needs to be copied
from the mail spool server to the pop server, manipulated, and then anything
you deleted copied back.

     There are some users here with as much as 80MB in their inbox, this means
each time they access the POP server, that entire file needs to be copied
twice.

     PLEASE be sure you do not have "Leave Mail On Server" checked.  That is,
in your e-mail client, be sure the button labeled "Leave Mail On Server" is
un-checked so that mail does NOT accumulate in your inbox. 

     If you use pine or one of the other shell mailers, please do not store
mail in your INBOX, store it in another folder. 

     Then, how often you check your mail is a factor, particularly if you have
a large INBOX.  If you check less frequently, it's less load on the server. 

     Lastly, take advantage of the new spam filtering capability, spam which
doesn't make it into your INBOX, is spam that will never be processed by the
pop server, resulting in less load.