Private message impact
 

A long time ago I set the maximum private message limit to 1000. At the time the forum was small and I never thought somebody would actually collect 1000 private messages.

I was looking at the private message statistics a few days ago and quite a few users are using close to the max. When asked, they all indicate they love the system and would like to keep it as it is.

I looked at the tables and I don't see private messages using a ton of database space, unless I am looking at the wrong tables. My database disk usage has been increasing a lot lately but everything is running smooth.

Are private messages stored like a regular post or is their impact on the database much less? Or more?

I was a bit shocked to see how badly the users want to keep their messages. We all know they can download them and stuff but they like them just the way they are. I'd like to keep the users happy but if 1000 private messages are the same hit as 1000 forum posts I would prefer to keep forum posts and not have to prune the forum someday.

I have tons of bandwidth and CPU and web disk space. My only limit is database disk usage.

I don't suppose I can store the private messages in the filesystem?

Is there an easy way to gauge how much disk space they are using? Can I sort them by size?

I have phpMyAdmin running to browse tables and do other scary things.

Thanks!

PS - v3.7.6, if that matters.