Hi, I am wondering if it is common to have just one very large index, or multiple smaller indexes specialized for different content types.
We currently have multiple smaller indexes, although one of them is much larger then the others. We are considering merging them, to allow the convenience of searching across multiple types at once and get them back in one list. The largest of the current indexes has a couple of types that belong together, it has just one text field, and it is usually quite short and is similar to product names (words like "The" matter). Another index I would merge with this one, has multiple text fields (also quite short). We of course would still like to be able to get specific types. Is doing filtering on just one type a big performance hit compared to just querying it from it's own index? Bare in mind all these indexes run on the same machine. (we replicate them all to three machines and do load balancing). There are a number of considerations. From an application standpoint when querying across all types we may split the results out into the separate types anyway once we have the list back. If we always do this, is it silly to have them in one index, rather then query multiple indexes at once? Is multiple http requests less significant then the time to post split the results? In some ways it is easier to maintain a single index, although it has felt easier to optimize the results for the type of content if they are in separate indexes. My main concern of putting it all in one index is that we'll make it harder to work with. We will definitely want to do filtering on types sometimes, and if we go with a mashed up index I'd prefer not to maintain separate specialized indexes as well. Any thoughts? ~Tim.
