> > The real issue is reliability. A reasonable quality $600-$1000 desktop
> > is probably fine for most small business. Backup to tape or a second
> > hard drive.
> 
> This is bad advice for an email server.  With most mail severs, you cannot
> reliably backup the queue or the mailstore, since the state is constantly
> changing.  The only freely available mail server that has built in
> clustering is PowerMail (dbmail allows for clustering via the database).
> The best way to backup a mail server is to use RAID.  Any backup you have
> will be way too old.

I was kind of assuming RAID was implicit...

> If users are storing mail on the server, as with IMAP, then it could be
> prudent to backup the mailstore, but only as an emergency measure against
> RAID failure.

I only use IMAP anymore, so I wasn't thinking about POP. If you're not
storing everyone's mail on the server, I can see how backing up the
server would be somewhat useless. But then you get into can of worms of
backing up the client machines. One good reason to store mail on the
server in a business environment, is simplifying backups...


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