About Data Store Files for Search

The following data store and log files are associated with the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 computer:

• Content Indexes for Search   When a portal site is created, SharePoint Portal Server creates two content indexes. When indexes are propagated to the search servers, SharePoint Portal Server creates the indexes under the root node. If you have enabled advanced search administration, you can specify the location of an index when you create it.

  To move existing indexes to a new location, see ToolsHowTo.txt in the Support\Tools directory on the SharePoint Portal Server CD.

  For information about content indexes, see About Content Indexes.

• Search Temporary Files   SharePoint Portal Server may need to create temporary files for documents being crawled. For best performance, the temporary files location should point to a disk other than the system drive or the drive that contains any SharePoint Portal Server data files, including the index files.

  By default, the Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server Search service (SharePointPSSearch) temporary files are stored in \Program Files\SharePoint Portal Server\DATA\Temp unless another location is specified by the server farm administrator. For more information, see Specifying the Location for Temporary Files.

  Important  For SharePointPSSearch to operate correctly, you must ensure that there is sufficient space on this drive to store the SharePointPSSearch temporary files. The typical default for the system TMP variable points to the system drive, which is not the optimal configuration for performance. To optimize performance, you must ensure that the property store files, the search indexes, the system page files, and the Web Storage System files (if any) are stored on spindles separate from the SharePointPSSearch temporary folder.

• Search Gatherer Logs   Each time SharePoint Portal Server creates an index, it creates a log file for that portal site. This log file contains data about crawling content sources and records access errors.

  The gatherer log contains data about URLs that are accessed while an index is being created. By default, the file records errors and warnings. For debugging, you can also configure the log to record successful accesses and accesses that are disallowed by rules.

  For information about specifying settings for the gatherer log, see Specifying Logging Options for a Content Index and Specifying Logging Options When Using Simple Search Administration Mode.

If you install the optional component for backward-compatible document libraries (Web Storage System-based), you will have these additional data store files:

• Microsoft Web Storage System — Database   Every computer on which the optional component for backward-compatible document libraries is installed contains one public store (wss.mdb). All document libraries hosted on the server reside on the Web Storage System.
• Web Storage System — Streaming Database   Used for streaming files, the Web Storage System Streaming Database file (wss.stm) contains data and is a companion to the Web Storage System Database file (wss.mdb). Together these two files form the database. Document streams make up a sizable part of the total amount of data. You might want to move this file to a larger drive (ideally a dynamic disk that you can easily resize) because it can increase substantially over time.
• Web Storage System — Database Log   These are the log files for the Web Storage System. For optimal performance, place the log files on a dedicated physical volume.

  It is recommended that all files be stored on the same computer as the Web Storage System, although they can be on separate partitions. For optimal performance, place the log files on dedicated physical volumes. In addition, store the indexes on drives formatted for the NTFS file system.