Bonkers 99-100% disk usage - Windows 11 - SearchIndexer.exe

[Lysrin]

I've been noticing slower performance on my C: SSD, the old HP one. I haven't switched to the new WD yet... and I don't want to take this issue to the new drive when I clone. Hunting around I found that the SeachIndexer.exe process is just nailing my C: drive for extended periods of time.

I know what that process is supposed to do as part of Windows Search so just disabling it isn't really recommended. Stopping the "Windows Search" service drops disk usage back down to nearly none on idle, as expected.

Anyone else seeing this behaviour, and know of a setting I could change or something to tame it? I have tried changing what is getting indexed in the Indexing Options but it hasn't made any difference.

 

[Lysrin]

I did find this with several suggestions. I'll check through these and see if anything helps:

How to fix Search Indexer High Disk or CPU usage in Windows 11/10

If the Searchindexer.exe or SearchProtocolHost.exe process in Windows is displaying a high CPU or Disk usage, here are some things you need to change to fix the problem.

www.thewindowsclub.com

 

[sswilson]

Usually see this kind of behaviour on a fresh install, but it's usually only obvious on a mechanical drive (I typically leave a mechanical drive install to run overnight to let it get it's indexing done).

Since it's an older install the only thing I can think of would be something like a corrupted index file. Hopefully one of the steps listed in that article will do the trick (although I have my doubts if those steps are truly W10 & W11 compatible).

 

[lowfat]

Reindex search. Move index to a different location. Then move back. I've had the issue on Win 10 before.

 

[Lysrin]

Reindex search. Move index to a different location. Then move back. I've had the issue on Win 10 before.

I'll give that a try. Thanks!

 

[Lysrin]

Usually see this kind of behaviour on a fresh install, but it's usually only obvious on a mechanical drive (I typically leave a mechanical drive install to run overnight to let it get it's indexing done).

Since it's an older install the only thing I can think of would be something like a corrupted index file. Hopefully one of the steps listed in that article will do the trick (although I have my doubts if those steps are truly W10 & W11 compatible).

Your comment about it being only obvious on a mechanical drive is just another indicator I think of the degraded performance I am seeing in this HP SSD now. All the more reason to get moved over to the new WD sitting on my desk sooner rather than later!

 

[Lysrin]

Just as follow-up, I kept monitoring this and it appears to have tamed itself. I'm not sure what was going on with it that was causing the indexing to take so long. Perhaps something on my system was interrupting it. Not sure. I haven't done any big installs or different types of file changes. The overall decreased performance on the HP SSD certainly wasn't helping either though I would guess.

So appears like problem solved... but I'll be keeping an eye on it. And I'd still like to know what caused it.