How not to wake up network disk when searching

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brettm
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:02 pm

How not to wake up network disk when searching

Post by brettm »

Hello. If there is a solution to my problem, I will be very grateful for the help.
I have shared folders on my NAS, they are indexed manually, "Monitor changes" Disabled, "Never rescan" Enabled.
Disk on my NAS is in Standby Mode (Spindown).

When I searching something on my local machine and it partially or fully match some files on NAS, Everything waking up (Spin up) remote drive.
My goal is to be able to search locally and remotely without waking up the NAS disk until I open the remote file. Is it possible?
PS: Sorry for my bad English

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void
Developer
Posts: 16745
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: How not to wake up network disk when searching

Post by void »

Please try disabling icon_shell_extensions and icon_blend_hidden:
  • Copy and paste the following into your Everything search box:
    /icon_shell_extensions=0
  • Press ENTER in your Everything search box.
  • If successful, icon_shell_extensions=0 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.
    This will disable all icon shell extensions in Everything -some extensions access the disk to load icons.
  • Copy and paste the following into your Everything search box:
    /icon_blend_hidden=0
  • Press ENTER in your Everything search box.
  • If successful, icon_blend_hidden=0 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.
    This will prevent Everything from reading the attribute information for displayed files.
    Hidden files are normally shown transparently.
    An alternative here is to index attribute information under Tools -> Options -> Indexes -> Index Attributes.
Everything will now avoid accessing your disk when showing files in detailed mode.



Alternatively, please consider file lists.

Create a file list of your network disk and include this file list in your Everything index.
Everything will never touch files in your file list.

I recommend creating a separate file list for each \\server\share
  • In Everything, from the Tools menu, click File List Editor.
  • In the File List Editor, from the Edit menu, click Add folder....
  • Select your \\server\share and click Select Folder.
  • From the File menu, click Save.
  • Choose a filename and click Save.
  • Close the File List Editor.
  • In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
  • Click the Folders tab.
  • Select your \\server\share and click Remove.
  • Select your \\server\share and click Remove.
  • Click the File Lists tab.
  • Click Add....
  • Select your File List you saved above and click Open.
  • Click OK.
Consider scheduling a task to automatically update your file list occasionally:

Code: Select all

Everything.exe -create-file-list "C:\filelists\Films.efu" \\server\films
Everything.exe -create-file-list "C:\filelists\TV.efu" \\server\tv
Everything will reindex these file lists after they are updated externally.
raccoon
Posts: 1017
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:24 am

Re: How not to wake up network disk when searching

Post by raccoon »

void wrote: Wed Nov 16, 2022 10:35 pm
  • /icon_blend_hidden=0
  • If successful, icon_blend_hidden=0 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.
    This will prevent Everything from reading the attribute information for displayed files.
    Hidden files are normally shown transparently.
    An alternative here is to index attribute information under Tools -> Options -> Indexes -> Index Attributes.
As a user in the same boat, I do recommend using the "[x] Index Attributes" option instead of /icon_blend_hidden=0. Indexing file attributes adds effectively zero time or memory to the task of indexing, and comes with benefits.

On the other hand, I do wish /icon_shell_extensions=0 were the default setting. Most modern drives like to sleep, and it's not very nice to wake them just so Everything can load pretty icon thumbnails (I prefer the file extension association application icons anyway). The only drawback of aesthetic note is the root drive icons will show as plain yellow folders instead of images of disk drives. If only that could be accomplished without spinning up each disk each time they're shown.

(Edit: I have no networked disks, just local USB volumes that like to sleep.)
Last edited by raccoon on Thu Nov 17, 2022 2:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
brettm
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:02 pm

Re: How not to wake up network disk when searching

Post by brettm »

It works! Thank you very much, highly grateful!
I used "/icon_shell_extensions=0" and "Index Attributes"
void
Developer
Posts: 16745
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: How not to wake up network disk when searching

Post by void »

The only drawback of aesthetic note is the root drive icons
Please consider:

/icon_shell_extensions=1
/icon_include_files=0
/icon_exclude_folders=**\**

(includes only root folders)

Showing the root drive in your results may still wake up your drive.

icon_shell_extensions
icon_include_files
icon_exclude_folders




I'll have to look at the win32 APIs again and add a ini setting to prevent access to drives that are asleep.
Last time I played with this, checking if the drives are asleep would wake them..
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