Add or remove an index partition (Search Server 2010)
Applies to: Search Server 2010
Topic Last Modified: 2010-02-22
Note
-
You can modify a search topology only if you selected the Farm installation option when you installed Microsoft Search Server 2010.
-
Microsoft Search Server 2010 Express is an entry-level enterprise search solution that has limited scalability. In Search Server 2010 Express, the topology components of each Search service application must be on one server. Although it is possible to add topology components on that server, in most cases it is not useful. For information about scalable solutions for enterprise search in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, see Technical diagrams (SharePoint Server 2010).
In Search Server 2010, an index partition is a group of query components. Each query component holds a subset of the full text index and returns search results to the query originator. Each index partition is associated with a specific property database that contains metadata associated with a specific set of crawled content. You can distribute the load of query servicing by adding index partitions to a Search service application and placing their query components on different farm servers.
You assign a server to service queries by creating a query component on that server. If you want to balance the load of servicing queries across multiple farm servers, add query components to an index partition and associate them with the servers that you want to service queries. For more information, see Add or remove a query component (Search Server 2010).
Note
When you create a new index partition, the first query component in the index partition is created automatically.
To add an index partition to a Search service application
Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a member of the Farm Administrators group.
In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.
On the Service Applications page, click the name of the Search service application to which you want to add an index partition.
On the Search Administration page, in the Search Application Topology section, click the Modify button.
On the Manage Search Topology page, click New, and then click Index Partition and Query Component.
In the Add Query Component dialog box, in the Server list, click the farm server to which you want to add the first query component of the new index partition.
In the Associated Property Database list, click the property database that you want to associate with the new index partition.
In the Location of Index field, you can optionally enter the location on the server that you want to use for storage of the index files after the index partition receives them from the crawl components. If you want to accept the default location, leave the contents of this field unchanged.
In the Failover-only Query Component section, you can select the Set this query component as failover-only check box if you want the query component to receive queries only in the event of a failure of the primary query component in the same index partition. If you are creating a new index partition, you should leave this box unchecked. You can add a failover-only query component to the index partition later if it is necessary.
Click OK to add the new index partition and its first query component to the job queue.
On the Manage Search Topology page, click the Apply Topology Changes button to start the SharePoint timer job that will add the new index partition and its first query component to the specified server.
Note
You can make other changes to the Search topology and then apply them at the same time by clicking the Apply Topology Changes button.
To remove an index partition from a Search service application
You can remove an index partition from a Search service application, which also removes all index files associated with the index partition. To remove an index partition, you delete all query components that are associated with the index partition, as described in the following procedure.
Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a member of the Farm Administrators group.
In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.
On the Service Applications page, click the name of the Search Service Application from which you want to remove an index partition.
On the Search Administration page, in the Search Application Topology section, click the Modify button.
On the Manage Search Topology page, click any query component in the index partition that you want to remove, and then click Delete.
In the message box that appears, click OK to delete the query component.
Repeat steps 4-5 for every query component in the index partition that you want to remove. Removing the last query component also removes the index partition.
Note
If you remove all the query components from an index partition, the index partition is completely removed from the farm and all the data from the partition is copied and distributed into the remaining partitions. Depending on resource availability and the volume of data in the partition, this operation might take a long time and affect farm performance. You cannot remove the last remaining index partition in a given Search Service Application.
On the Manage Search Topology page, click the Apply Topology Changes button to start the SharePoint timer job that will remove the index partition and its query components from the farm.
Note
You can make other changes to the Search topology and then apply them all at the same time by clicking the Apply Topology Changes button.