Char Jackson wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

FileLocator took 9 seconds on a 2nd (cached) search, not 42 seconds.
I don't remember what I searche on in my 1st reply.

Heh, the 42 seconds was on my system, not yours. :-)

Yep, 9 seconds on mine, 42 seconds on yours, but probably different
search criteria in file systems with different numbers of folders and
files. While probably not exactly the same folder and file count as
FileLocator must traverse when reading the file system, a 'dir /s'
command (which takes a LOT longer probably due to all the stdout)
returns 223,765 files and 138,371 folders (and just over an additional
thousand each for a 'dir /ahs'). I didn't bother looking at the depth
of the folders.

My SSD is a Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" 256MB SATA3. Different SSDs have
different read/write speeds. Alas, this is in an old desktop PC that
only has SATA2 ports on the mobo. No SATA3 yet (that'll be in my next
build). This was a salvaged PC built in 2009 that I got in 2013 that
required a new PSU, new video card (which still pricey these days), a
new HDD (later added the SSD), and Speedfan for the CPU fan since the
BIOS could no longer control RPM based on temperature. The 8 GB RAM it
has is the max this old mobo will support. Most times about half is
unused. Hey, it was free (but not to repair).

The only setting that I found in FileLocator that looks like it could
change its search speed is under Tools - Configuration - General -
Performance - Allow multiple search threads. The description says it
will create seaparate threads for each CPU core. While I don't consider
my CPU as recent or powerful (Intel Core 2 Quad 9400), it is a quad
core, so maybe that helps.

Something else that could affect search speed is security software. I
was using Avast free (trimmed down to just the file, behavior, and web
shields - no fluff, no lureware). I uninstalled it, ran aswclear, and
cleaned out all its remnant registry entries and files. I tried
Bitdefender free but found it noticeably impacted file operations. Most
everything got slower. Web browsing was most affected where web
browsers got jerky or longer delay to respond when scrolling long web
pages and downloads took longer. When starting to download a file, it
was like 5-10 seconds before even the browser dialog appeared to let me
select where to save the file. Went back to Avast and everything was
faster to respond. In the interim between uninstalling Avast but before
installing Bitdefender, I noticed my system seemed a tad perkier. I
realize all that interrogation causes overhead but some security
software causes more impact on responsiveness than others.

Now that I found Everything has a "content:" operator to look inside of
files (although a lot slower but still seems faster than FileLocator),
I'll probably not bother using FileLocator anymore. FileLocator let me
dig into files looking for strings but I found out so does Everything.
I'll have to spend some time digging into all the operators available in
Everything (see Help - Search Syntax) along with all the command-line
options (Help - Command Line Options).