External drive indexing question

General discussion related to "Everything".
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v1s10n
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jun 11, 2020 11:00 pm

External drive indexing question

Post by v1s10n »

Hi everyone!

New user here. Shoot this one down if it's been hashed before:

I just did an archive, merging data from a few sources totaling about 10TB of data. About 6 million files across 700k folders. This is all production based stuff, so it's mostly media: sound bites, images and movies, and a LOT of 3d data (3d binary data files, .OBJs, LIDAR scans and similar). It's basically an archive of a production facility, and the client wants to use it as a sort of library that they can search through. Media is a 10 TB WD external HDD with what appears to be USB 3.

The data has not been written in any coherent way that I can make sense of- just big stacks of folders. But it does look like the time and date stamps are good on the files (folders are all marked with the same date). I am hoping to find an indexing solution that will work across multiple OSs. In order of importance: Windows 10+, Linux, MacOS. Again, these are all "art production" files, so they may be in the hands of a producer (Windows), 3d workstation (linux), or 2d/post which is often MacOS[/latest Mac]. If Everything is as good as it says in is, and as good as it reads, then we may just attach the external HDD with said Everything Index on a windoze machine and force people to use that to retrieve data.

Also note, I am not an IT guy, I'm an artist that got tasked with this. Looks like "Everything" will create a fast index for Windows. Is there an app or client to read that Index via linux, et al? Perhaps I should use a different software to manage this disk-drive? How fast will this be for such a big data set?

Thanks for your consideration!

V
void
Developer
Posts: 16681
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: External drive indexing question

Post by void »

"Everything" is currently Windows only.

You might find file lists useful?
They are essentially a CSV file with the filename, size and date modified. You should be able to view these on any OS.

What format is the external HDD drive using?
-If it is NTFS, Everything should be able to build an index in a few seconds. Non-NTFS volumes may take a few minutes to index with Everything.

To add your removable NTFS volumes to your Everything index:
  • In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
  • Click the NTFS tab.
  • Select your removable NTFS volume.
  • Check Include in database.
  • Click OK.
To add your non-NTFS volume to your Everything index:
  • In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
  • Click the Folders tab.
  • Click Add....
  • Select your non-NTFS volume and click OK.
  • Click OK.
Searching your dataset with Everything should be instant.
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