SharePoint 2019 On-premises Two Search servers

Question

Hi All,

"We recently added a new search server to our SharePoint 2019 on-premises farm, bringing the total to two search servers.

Previously, with only one search server, the crawl time for various site collections was quite long. To improve this, we added a second search server, and both servers now have identical topologies (see the attached screenshot).

Our question is: Will adding a second search server reduce the crawl time for site collections? Additionally, will this second server help improve user experience? For example, when a crawl was running on the original server, users often experienced slow site load times, and sometimes pages wouldn’t display, leading to complaints. Will adding a second server improve performance and resolve these issues?"

Regards,

Imran

Answer 1

Hi @Imran Nawaz,

Adding a second search server to your SharePoint 2019 on-premises farm can indeed help reduce crawl times for site collections. With two search servers, the workload can be distributed, allowing for more efficient crawling. This means that the overall time taken to crawl the content should decrease, as both servers can work simultaneously on different parts of the content.

Additionally, having a second server can improve user experience. When a crawl is running on a single server, it can consume significant resources, leading to slower site load times and potential display issues for users. By distributing the load across two servers, you can alleviate some of the resource contention, which should help maintain better performance and responsiveness during crawls.

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