We give each list its own disk (or in some cases, SFS space).  This way
backups are not usually a problem since it's a relatively small disk to
process, plus the list owner becomes responsible for space management -
e.g. if the disk fills up it doesn't affect the rest of LISTSERV.
 
We use SFS space for a few lists, for various reasons.  At this site, SFS
is backed up with Syback, which locks the filespace at the start of the
backup (of that filespace).  So, it has happened that a post will come in
when that particular filespace is being backed up, and thus locked.  This
doesn't make LISTSERV very happy and the list gets held, so we have to
manually free it in that case, but we're sure of a good backup anyhow.
 
Bill
City University of New York