Large Mailing List Pros/Cons

[bob]

I have an offer to host a large mailing list for the "Right To Life state of ___"(not MLM,spammy stuff all are opt-in)
50,000 plus and could grow to 100,000

What type of load would this create for my server?
Pros/Crons Please


also is there a rule of thumb on how to fiqure BW usage for email?

[Chicken]

Well, for the right price, of course it would be worth it! I suppose once you find out load levels you can work up a price for them, unless that's all been taken care of already?

[bob]

What type of load would this bring on server?any ideas?

I dont want to kill it/slow down for other customers

[Chicken]

Heh, I don't know anyone who has run 50,000 - 100,000, though I'd imagine that mailing list software (the right kind) comes into play at that level, depending on how often mailings go out. Another factor for you to consider.

[BurtonHost]

If it's sending via sendmail (even a sym link to exim) you're definately going to find load spikes. It wont kill the server but will raise the load.

E.g. an opt in mailing list I help manage of 3000 spikes for maybe a few mins (noticible and reported). Say 2 mins for arguments sake.

So, you could be looking at about half an hour of spiked load..

And then, what about the mail queue: any undeliverables will all be queued. If 10% are delayed then you've just added 5000 mails into your queue. Each time the queue is rerun then all of those have to be reprocesed.

It may not pose too much of a problem if you run it in the middle of the night, but once they hit 100,000 i'd seriously recommend they go for a higher solution with you - perhaps dedicated.

[PaulBeau]

Bob,
If you are using something like Lyris List Manager then this amount would not be a problem. What Mailing list software are you using? This is not that large of a mailing. What will be the average size of each mailing? This will make a big difference in the BW of the mailing.

Paul

[bob]

Using mailman version 2.0.13 that is available in Cpanel 6.

A new phpLists has become available thru our Fantastico,but I haven't had time to use it yet, and am not sure how it works.





As far as size,I dont know as this is NOT an existing list.
I am really looking for a forumla to apx BW usage.
If a 10k email is sent 100 times that is 1megs correct?
so then if theres a 50,000 on the lists and one person sends out one 10k email
10k x 50,000=500,000Kb =500megs? (1000k=1 meg)

Seems its getting a little bigger.Am I correct in this or not?

thank you for your reply

[BurtonHost]

Well, 488megs I think or there abouts ;)

[bob]

well if 20,000 replied then your talking about apx. 20 gigs per day...

would SCSI Hard Drive help ?

[BurtonHost]

SCSI : yes. Simultaneous read and write if there is alot of data coming and going

[bob]

man oh o man, how much does somebody like yahoo mailing lists used a day in BW?

TBs

[PaulBeau]

Well your math looks right but remember 1Meg = 1024K not 1000K

here is a cut/paste from on of our customers reports showing the actual bandwith for one of his mailings each message unit is a 10K message.

Total # of messages units: 179,645
Total bandwidth: 1,706.34 Mb

Hope this helps.

Paul

[bob]

well something is wrong in my math.
if he sent out 179,645 10k emails and only used 1,706.34 Mb
or apx 1.7 gigs then my math is wrong ...?


to many zeros for a zerohead like me :)

[bob]

This explains things alittle better if your really into sendmail:)

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-developers/2001-June/008928.html

[interactive]

I run a site with about 20,000 members and I do a mailing about once or twice a week. I do it at the middle of the night for a reason. It does create some load spikes, but if setup/configured correctly (sendmail) it isn't that bad. Find out how often they mail out, and then go from there.