I am adding a new basic disk partition to my Exchange 2007 Windows Server 2003 64bit server to add more storage groups. It is a RAID 1 Array. I know Exchange 2007 has it's own search indexing service, which is on by default and needed.
On clients, I always disable the indexing service on the drives by either disabling the Windows Search service or unchecking the "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching" checkbox in the drive properties window. I do this because, in my experience, the index service just eats up resources and turning it off generally isn't even noticeable to the users.
I cannot find any documentation regarding this service and if it would affect Exchange 2007 mailboxes and storage groups if it is disabled. Right now it is enabled on the new drive, but the drive is completely empty as of right now. Can I disable it or should I not worry about it? Any performance gains I can gain are always welcome. Thanks!
Disk indexing isn't related to Exchange in any way that I'm aware of so you should be able to disable it if you're so inclined. I disable disk indexing on all of my servers, for good or bad. I've never been aware of any issue with doing so.
The original Server 2003 indexing service was replaced by a newer version. And now there are newer versions.
You only need to run the indexing services that you actually query. Since you aren't specifically querying the indexes built by the original 2003 indexing service, you don't need them.
When would you specifically query the indexes of the old indexing service? When you have a pre-sharepoint webpage that specifically uses that indexing system to provide indexed access.
When would this indexing service be used with Exchange or SQL Server? When you use Exchange 2000 or SQL Server 7, which use the generic OS indexing service for full-text indexing.