Windows Windows 7 Index network drives?

is it me being stupid or i cannot find a way to index network shared folders?

cannot add to list of index through the standard index options screen
cannot symbolic link to shared location to index

i've recently bought a NAS and put all my files onto it, so without able to quickly find the files i want, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a centralised storage unit.


alternatively, what search software do you use?

one that can index infinite folder depth, i've tried NeoSearch, but somehow cannot find films in my "seen" folder which is 5 level down from \video shared folder. (sort of defeats purpose of searching for films i've seen)

 

if you want to index folders on a network share, you have to have indexing enabled, on all computers with a network share on them. think also you need vista/win7 to do it properly.

it can be done on xp but you need MS's Search 4.0 installed

 

may i ask how do i go about enabling index on all shared folder on my Synology Ds410j NAS box?

is there any way to index network shares that is not running Windows?

 

oops i missed the nas box section

is your nas box iscsi enabled? just checked the website, and it does indeed appear to be iscsi capable.

set it up as an iscsi target. then you should be able to index it, as if it was a normal harddrive on the system

 

but it will mean files on iSCSI won't be indexed by NAS's DNLA and UPnP service for media centre software.

 

This is true. As I need the contents of my server, and NAS to be also as a UPnP server for media player and my internet radio player, it has also caused me problems.

Can you not set the shared folder as a networked drive and not a shared folder? I read somewhere that should then be indexable.

Depending on how fast the systems involved are however, do you need to index it? My music folder is on the server, and I have indexing off on my system. I just did a search for something random from over 35,000 music files, and it took no more than a few seconds.

 

the DS410j isn't the fastest NAS on the market, and it's doing RAID5, so for searching, it would take a few seconds. i measured about 7 seconds for just over 4,000 files.

also, the searching cannot be done through the start menu. which is what i want: quickly find a file. the method of typing in the box only works if you navigate to that particular shared folder.


speed and ease of use is everything with indexing. Start button -> type. by the time navigated to network folder with mouse, might as well forget about it.