Your email client should be able to download your old emails and store them locally in a searchable folder, right? So even if your email provider downsizes you inbox, there's no reason to lose history.
>Your email client should be able to download your old emails and store them locally in a searchable folder, right?
Another problem is that most enterprise shops have a policy of not backing up workstations. Get a virus? Hard drive dies? Too bad. Here's your factory image, have fun with that. What about that 10 gigabytes of email? 10 Gigabytes? What the hell is wrong with you?
That last conversation has happened at more places than I care to remember...
In any case, the cost/value proposition for something like GMail is very, very good. They store everything, they back up everything, they make it searchable with a decent interface. Storage is cheap too, compared with the cost of losing multiple gigabytes of email and managing your own. Anybody can set up an email server, but few can administrate it well.
~8000 messages, couple of gigabytes, takes about as long to search as gmail takes to reload the page in thunderbird for me (and I can customize my search endlessly), this on an old machine that I bought in january of 2008 (searched for the order confirmation ;)).
gmail is great, for a web service, but you shouldn't rely on google having backups and you should indulge yourself with a native client, keep gmail, or any other service, for web access.
I don't know, I might just be reactionary and negative for the sake of it.