Search indexing on backup device?

cbreemer · Jul 25, 2025

Hi all,
Just wondering if a backup device needs to be enabled for content indexing?
My backups are taking a long time (even the incremental ones) and I wonder if that might be because the device has this property checked:

Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties

Would it make sense to uncheck this property? And would it help performance? I don't plan on doing a search on my backup device ever.
Thanks for your ideas.

antspants · Jul 25, 2025

Backups (system images) on an external drive for me are ridiculously slow regardless that they are SSD’s
Backups to an internal SSD is quite a massive difference.

But No a backup device does not need to be enabled for content indexing, if you don’t need it indexed. As you don’t want to search the device, turn it off.
Indexing can create additional input/output during file copy or sync operations. Disabling it would eliminate that overhead. It could also possibly extend the life of the device.

antspants · Jul 25, 2025

Having said that, I couldn’t tell you if the backups will be faster, but it’s worth the test.

cbreemer · Jul 25, 2025

antspants said:
Having said that, I couldn’t tell you if the backups will be faster, but it’s worth the test.

Thanks for your reply. It will probably not help much... my backup device is an HDD on USB

Ridiculously slow indeed. But I guess no harm in trying.
When I switch this off, do you think I need to reformat the drive to get rid of previous indexing?

antspants · Jul 25, 2025

cbreemer said:
Thanks for your reply. It will probably not help much... my backup device is an HDD on USB Ridiculously slow indeed. But I guess no harm in trying.
When I switch this off, do you think I need to reformat the drive to get rid of previous indexing?

Nope

Disable indexing on a drive

- Open File Explorer.
- Right-click the drive you want to change and select Properties.
- Uncheck "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties."
- Click Apply.
- When prompted, choose "Apply changes to drive, subfolders and files."
- Wait for Windows to process the change. It may take some time depending on how many files are on the drive.

After you disable it, if you wanted to, you could follow this:

Reset and Rebuild Search Index in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to manually reset and rebuild the search index for accurate search results in Windows 11. Indexing the content of your PC helps you get faster results when your searching it for files, emails, or other local content. The search index only includes your selected...

www.elevenforum.com

antspants · Jul 25, 2025

cbreemer said:
my backup device is an HDD on USB Ridiculously slow indeed

I know what you mean, I also have an external (USB 3) HDD that I use as well because it’s 8TB

I flew to Canada from Australia, returned and I think it said 231 days to go

hdmi · Jul 25, 2025

cbreemer said:
my backup device is an HDD on USB Ridiculously slow indeed.

Consider to use a separate internal SSD (or use a separate data partition on the same internal SSD if you have other choice) as a temporary storage with enough available free space on it so that you will be able to specify that as the destination to create large, full system backups faster if/when needed. However, if you choose to go this route, always remember that a backup isn't an actual backup until you copied it to a secondary storage location [that is both separate and isolated from the source, or primary storage location]. The fastest, most reliable method to copy a large amount of data from one locally attached (through SATA, USB, NVMe, or etc.) storage location to another is FastCopy. Especially if you want to make it more bulletproof with things like verify options, file hash codes stored in the log that you can use periodically to re-verify the integrity of files, per-file error logging, etc., FastCopy is the way to go.

FastCopy

FastCopy Official site

fastcopy.jp

cbreemer · Jul 26, 2025

antspants said:
Nope

Disable indexing on a drive

- Open File Explorer.
- Right-click the drive you want to change and select Properties.
- Uncheck "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties."
- Click Apply.
- When prompted, choose "Apply changes to drive, subfolders and files."
- Wait for Windows to process the change. It may take some time depending on how many files are on the drive.

After you disable it, if you wanted to, you could follow this:

Reset and Rebuild Search Index in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to manually reset and rebuild the search index for accurate search results in Windows 11. Indexing the content of your PC helps you get faster results when your searching it for files, emails, or other local content. The search index only includes your selected...

www.elevenforum.com

Thanks again! Very helpful as always.

cbreemer · Jul 26, 2025

hdmi said:
Consider to use a separate internal SSD (or use a separate data partition on the same internal SSD if you have other choice) as a temporary storage with enough available free space on it so that you will be able to specify that as the destination to create large, full system backups faster if/when needed. However, if you choose to go this route, always remember that a backup isn't an actual backup until you copied it to a secondary storage location [that is both separate and isolated from the source, or primary storage location]. The fastest, most reliable method to copy a large amount of data from one locally attached (through SATA, USB, NVMe, or etc.) storage location to another is FastCopy. Especially if you want to make it more bulletproof with things like verify options, file hash codes stored in the log that you can use periodically to re-verify the integrity of files, per-file error logging, etc., FastCopy is the way to go.

FastCopy

FastCopy Official site

fastcopy.jp

Thanks for that! Would be great to have an internal SSD as backup device, but I don't have any spare SSD slots in my Intel NUC thingy. Indeed using a partition of an existing SSD does not quite cut the mustard. I don't currently need any of the functionality you describe, but FastCopy is a good thing to remember.

hdmi · Jul 26, 2025

cbreemer said:
Thanks for that! Would be great to have an internal SSD as backup device, but I don't have any spare SSD slots in my Intel NUC thingy. Indeed using a partition of an existing SSD does not quite cut the mustard. I don't currently need any of the functionality you describe, but FastCopy is a good thing to remember.

You already have two internal SSDs (according to your specs) so, all you really need to be able to speed up full system backups is enough available free space on the 2nd SSD. Alternatively, you can use a separate data partition on the 1st SSD (if we can assume that you have enough available free space on that one).

After the new backup has successfully been created, copy it to the USB drive. For that, you can use FastCopy without the optional functionalities I described.

That said, also remember that you need to physically unplug the USB drive and move it to a safe location away from the computer. Until you do, the drive remains a part of your primary storage location, meaning that it still isn't an actual backup—by mere definition alone. Another thing to want to remember is that, to make it reliable, you also need to physically unplug the drive from its power supply or physically unplug that power supply from the wall outlet. (That is, if we can assume that the external drive unit you use isn't a bus powered device.) A typical consumer-grade powerstrip with a built-in surge protector and/or a built-in power (flip) switch isn't an adequate alternative solution to this particular part of the equation, as these protections can still fail.

In essence, if you only have one backup drive, then the number of backup copies you have gets effectively reduced to zero each time when you plug it in. So, it isn't just about the potential risk of multiple drives failing at once. If you can access the data stored on the drives, so can malware attacks and whatnot. (Even, if you never suffer from momentary lapses of reason so you never delete nor corrupt your important backup files by your own glorious mistake.)

It's a homebrew backup strategy alright. Even so, it's fast, and, for most people, it doesn't take a whole lot of extra effort to make it work. Reliably.

cbreemer · Jul 26, 2025

hdmi said:
You already have two internal SSDs (according to your specs) so, all you really need to be able to speed up full system backups is enough available free space on the 2nd SSD. Alternatively, you can use a separate data partition on the 1st SSD (if we can assume that you have enough available free space on that one).

After the new backup has successfully been created, copy it to the USB drive. For that, you can use FastCopy without the optional functionalities I described.

That said, also remember that you need to physically unplug the USB drive and move it to a safe location away from the computer. Until you do, the drive remains a part of your primary storage location, meaning that it still isn't an actual backup—by mere definition alone. Another thing to want to remember is that, to make it reliable, you also need to physically unplug the drive from its power supply or physically unplug that power supply from the wall outlet. (That is, if we can assume that the external drive unit you use isn't a bus powered device.) A typical consumer-grade powerstrip with a built-in surge protector and/or a built-in power (flip) switch isn't an adequate alternative solution to this particular part of the equation, as these protections can still fail.

In essence, if you only have one backup drive, then the number of backup copies you have gets effectively reduced to zero each time when you plug it in. So, it isn't just about the potential risk of multiple drives failing at once. If you can access the data stored on the drives, so can malware attacks and whatnot. (Even, if you never suffer from momentary lapses of reason so you never delete nor corrupt your important backup files by your own glorious mistake.)

It's a homebrew backup strategy alright. Even so, it's fast, and, for most people, it doesn't take a whole lot of extra effort to make it work. Reliably.

Thanks, this is very educating. And sobering! I realize there is far more to backup (if you want to do it properly) than just plugging in a USB device, letting some free backup program do its magic, then forget about it. Not sure I want to go through all these hoops though... The current setup has always worked well for me, although admittedly I have never hit disaster. And the Paragon backup taking a long time isn't really a problem as it works nice and quiet in the background without disturbing me in the least, unlike EaseUs ToDo which I was finally fed up with for regularly making the system unworkable.

Search indexing on backup device?

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