Scalability: Desiging a message table

This question might be deadly simple but I wanted to make sure I am going through the correct path and not making any simple and irrevertible mistakes.

My project will be based on messaging and it won't be as less-used as a side tool like in Twitter or Facebook (not that they are not used but it's not the key option presented to users)

I was wondering will a simple table design like;

• from (id)

• to (id)

• content (text)

• created_at (date)

• isRead (boolean)

will suffice because, even though it is planned to be a small project, I do not believe that all the messages should be stored in one table and for each user when they want to view their messaging history, I shouldn't be scanning the entire table to do so. I am thinking about how scalable would this structure be and how would I benefit using a NoSQL DB like mongoDB.

You can go through the following embedded json document to implement
your message collection and can ensure index on "mail_id" key to avoid
scanning all documents. For your information here collection serve as
table and each document serve as row of a table.

{
mail_id:string
sentMails:{
            [
                {
                sent_at: datetime,
                subject: string,
                sent_to: string,
                cc_to:[array of mailid strings],
                bcc_to:[array of mailid strings],
                attachments:[
                                {
                                attachment_name:string,
                                attachment_type:strng
                                }
                            ],
                sent_mail_content: string               
                }
            ]
            }

receivedMails:{
                [
                    {
                    received_at: datetime,  
                    subject: string,                
                    received_from: string,
                    cc_to:[array of mailid strings],
                    attachments:[
                                    {
                                    attachment_name:string,
                                    attachment_type:strng
                                    }
                                ],
                    received_mail_content: string
                    }
                ]   
            }
}

I hope it will help.

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#45894, answer score: 4