mail.msu.edu Storage Limits Doubled; Other Features Added
08/31/2005
Users of MSU’s central e-mail service, mail.msu.edu, now can take advantage of additional storage space. The default quota is now 128 megabytes, up from 64.
Matt Kolb, team leader of the mail.msu.edu group, says that improvements made to the mail service’s storage subsystem over the summer set the stage for the increase in quota. The mail service is now running on a faster network storage device. The network connections among the servers that comprise the system now have greater capacity as well as more redundant connections to improve the ability of the service to survive partial system outages.
The mail team has also added two new features to the service:
- A new “Block Spam” option allows users to prevent the delivery of spam messages. If a user selects this option, when the system identifies a message as spam, the system will discard the message, never even placing it in the user’s inbox. Warning: No anti-spam tool is infallible; at times the system may identify a message as spam, when in fact it is legitimate. If you select this option, there is no way to recover messages that have been identified as spam and blocked from delivery.
- A new “Abandon Draft” button on the mail composition page allows users to discard a message they no longer wish to save.
As the university’s central e-mail service, mail.msu.edu processes an average of two million messages per day. The service blocks some 500,000 spam messages every day, and, during virus outbreaks, may block a million or more virus-laden messages in a single day.
