[SSD] Indexing in Windows 10

[Youayoun]

Hello all,

 

I'm having some concerns about the indexing of files on Windows10 running on SSD.

 

As you guys know, disabling indexing is strongly advised on SSDs since a lot of write operations reduce the SSD lifespan (among other optimizations that Windows can handle).

The problem is that the search is disabled on mail items (Outlook), file items, etc... (The SSD is the only storage available, no other drives).

 

The always given answer is "No need for you to enable indexing on your C:, your SSD is already fast enough".

 

But fast or not, if Windows doesn't know where to find your files (without indexing), the searches are very poor, and seriously behind any searching experience on Windows 7 with indexing enabled.

 

Did you guys came across a solution for this ? I encountered this problem at home, but at work too : workstations are migrated to Windows10, and I think they disabled Indexing in Group Policies, the OS being mostly upgraded on SSD laptops.

 

Thanks !

 

Youyayoun

[Tsuki]

disabling indexing was done when SSDs were still new and actually still had issues with it reducing your valuable read/write cycles.

This is no longer an issue with modern SSDs.  feel free to keep it enabled

 

 

also, if you want, and have a separate HDD, you can move windows index file to another drive

[GoodBytes]

I agree with Tsuki. SSD's these days (even several years ago) are pretty much tanks. They can sustain massive amount of writes daily. Even if you were to defrag your SSD each day, I am most convinced that it will last more than 10 years (assuming no manufacture error). That said, and I am mentioning this because someone will correct me, I don't mean you can take a consumer SSD and put it in a server that gets trashes constantly for years. Use server HDDs or server SSDs which can sustain way more than consumer end SSD.

 

Indexing is important. Even if you have an NVMe super fast SSD drive, it is still slow compared to use of indexing.

[Youayoun]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the answers, it's crazy to see all optimizations recommanded for SSDs, I also saw guys who disable Windows Event logs because it was a bit talkative  

End up messing with Windows Update.

 

I won't be able to activate it in my workplace (indexing is reset at reboot), but I'll try to enable it again at my home.

 

Feel free to keep going on this thread, I think it can be useful for many, I never see anyone recommanding to turn it back on on "new SSDs".

 

Thanks,

 

Youyayoun

[Tsuki]

honestly, you are free to ignore all the "tips and tricks for making your ssd last longer"  none of it matters anymore.

hibernation can be left on

pagefile can be left alone

superfetch can be left on (although i tend to disable it as it causes other issues)

[homeap5]

It all depends. Lifespan is one factor and it's true that modern SSD lifespan will not be shorter if you use it. But if you don't use Windows search at all (like me, for example) it's useless. The same about hibernation - you can have SSD and use it, but if you never use hibernation, it's just waste of space. I recommend something obvious - if you use some feature, do not disable it. Don't look at SSD lifespan - you probably replace it after few years anyway.