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Indexer server: Disk usage increases unexpectedly (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)

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Applies to: FAST Search Server 2010

Issue: Indexer server: Disk usage increases unexpectedly.

Summary: Typically, the disk usage on an indexer server will not increase significantly unless new content sources are added or existing ones have increased in size. If you experience an unexpected increase in disk usage, the probable causes are an unplanned increase in crawled content, or that the query matching component has been stopped by the administrator without suspending indexing.

Symptom: Disk usage on the indexer server is increasing unexpectedly, and you risk running out of disk space. 

Causes: This symptom can be a result of one or both of the following causes:

  • Cause 1: Too many indexed items in one index column caused by unplanned increase in crawled content or changed type of content

  • Cause 2: You have a query matching component installed on the index server, but the query matching component has been stopped

Cause 1: Too many indexed items in one index column caused by unplanned increase in crawled content or changed type of content

Choose the resolution that best matches your system installation.

Resolution 1: Reduce the amount of crawled content

  1. Reduce the disk usage by limiting the amount of crawled content. How to do this depends on the type of indexing connector you are using.

    If you are using the FAST Search Content Search Service Application, you can exclude content by adding crawl rules in the Central Administration. For more information, see Manage crawl rules (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint).

    If you are using one or more FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint specific indexing connectors, you can exclude content by configuring certain parameters in the connector configuration file. For more information, see Manage crawl rules (FAST Search Web crawler), Manage crawl rules (FAST Search Lotus Notes connector), and / or Manage crawl rules (FAST Search database connector).

Resolution 2: Add an additional indexer column

  1. Increase the indexing capacity by adding an additional indexer column. For information about how to do this, see Add an index column (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint).

Cause 2: You have a query matching component installed on the index server, but the query matching component has been stopped

When the indexer and query matching components are running on the same server, the query matching component is responsible for deleting old index sets as it is activating new sets. If the query matching component has been stopped but the administrator has not suspended indexing, the indexer will continue to produce new index sets based on crawled content. As the query matching component is unable to delete the old index sets, the disk usage will increase over time.

Resolution: Start the query matching component to remove old and unused index sets

  1. From a command prompt, start the search process (query matching role) by running the following command:

    <FASTSearchFolder>\bin\nctrl start search-1

    where <FASTSearchFolder> is the path of the folder where you have installed FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, for example C:\FASTSearch.

    When the query matching component is running, new index sets will become active and the old index sets will be deleted. Disk usage will decrease accordingly.