can i/should i worry about fragmentation in catalog files?

Hello all,
I have an application that grew to 1.5 million records and saw poor
performance for a variety of reasons, but one huge 'doh' reason was that I
didn't think to pre-allocate the database and the poor database file was
fragmented as it grew from its default size in increments When we moved to a
new server I pre-allocated the file and made sure it was contiguous.
Is there a correllary with full-text indexing? Are there full-text catalog
files I can or should be creating as contiguous files, or should i be
running defrag on them?
thanks,
john
John,
Yes, there is. It is call "Master Merge" and smaller index files (shadow
files) are merged together at Midnight (controlled via registry key). While
this is not directly controllable in SQL Server 2000, can be managed via the
following TSQL code in SQL Server 2005:
Reorganize the full-text catalog using ALTER FULLTEXT CATALOG REORGANIZE. It
is important to do this before performance testing because it results in a
master merge of the full-text indexes in that catalog.
Regards,
John
SQL Full Text Search Blog
http://spaces.msn.com/members/jtkane/
"John Mott" <johnmott59@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23lsVUjy0FHA.612@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Hello all,
> I have an application that grew to 1.5 million records and saw poor
> performance for a variety of reasons, but one huge 'doh' reason was that I
> didn't think to pre-allocate the database and the poor database file was
> fragmented as it grew from its default size in increments When we moved to
> a
> new server I pre-allocated the file and made sure it was contiguous.
> Is there a correllary with full-text indexing? Are there full-text catalog
> files I can or should be creating as contiguous files, or should i be
> running defrag on them?
> thanks,
> john
>
|||Thank you for your response. Unfortunately this is SQL Server 2000. Does it
make enough of a difference that its worth defragging the individual catalog
files with something like www.defragmentor.com?
john
"John Kane" <jt-kane@.comcast.net> wrote in message
news:%23A7C4vy0FHA.560@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> John,
> Yes, there is. It is call "Master Merge" and smaller index files (shadow
> files) are merged together at Midnight (controlled via registry key).
While
> this is not directly controllable in SQL Server 2000, can be managed via
the
> following TSQL code in SQL Server 2005:
> Reorganize the full-text catalog using ALTER FULLTEXT CATALOG REORGANIZE.
It[vbcol=seagreen]
> is important to do this before performance testing because it results in a
> master merge of the full-text indexes in that catalog.
> Regards,
> John
> --
> SQL Full Text Search Blog
> http://spaces.msn.com/members/jtkane/
>
> "John Mott" <johnmott59@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:%23lsVUjy0FHA.612@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
I[vbcol=seagreen]
to[vbcol=seagreen]
catalog
>
|||You're welcome, John,
I suspected that you were using SQL Server 2000 as the SQL 2005 info was
just FYI as Microsoft now recognizes this as a 'tunable' knob... As for
using Defragmentor or other utilities, in a word: No. The FT Catalog files
are managed by the "Microsoft Search" (mssearch.exe) service and are
compressed internally, so these utilities will do more harm than good.
For SQL Server 2000, the Master Merge" and smaller index files (shadow
files) are merged together at Midnight, so you may want to monitor your
server's app log for this recorded event at midnight.
Regards,
John
SQL Full Text Search Blog
http://spaces.msn.com/members/jtkane/
"John Mott" <johnmott59@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:OFouh$y0FHA.2884@.TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> Thank you for your response. Unfortunately this is SQL Server 2000. Does
> it
> make enough of a difference that its worth defragging the individual
> catalog
> files with something like www.defragmentor.com?
> john
>
> "John Kane" <jt-kane@.comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:%23A7C4vy0FHA.560@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> While
> the
> It
> I
> to
> catalog
>