I am using a full text catalog on a SQL Server 2000 on Win 2000 Advanced server.

New entries are added daily to the database as well as updated entries.  The
catalog needs to be up to date and that is done through a scheduled incremental
population of the catalog.  The number of records is approx. 300,000 records with
4 columns indexed by the catalog in one table.

I noticed that the incremental population is taking as much time as the full
population (about 6 hours!!) if not even more.  At one time, I added less than
0.5% new data that should have not caused a major work in the incremental
population.

Any one has any idea how to speed up the process specially when the repopulation
has to occur daiy.

Also, ane one know any other indexing tool (other than built-in windows full text
index) that can be used along with SQL server.

Your help is much appreciated.

Thanks

Ghamdan

Incremental update can take a long time. Although timestamps can be used to
tell which rows have been inserted or deleted, the entire table must be
scanned to see which rows have been deleted. If you don't have a timestamp
column, SQL Server will actually do a full population.

Since you are using SQL 2000, I suggest you take a look at a new population
method, called Change Tracking. It can be much much faster than full or
incrementation.  Read about it in Books Online.

Also note there is a separate newsgroup for fulltext questions, and members
of the fulltext dev team at MS frequently monitor that section.

HTH
--
Kalen Delaney
MCSE, SQL Server MCT, MVP
www.InsideSQLServer.com
Feed Someone for Free Today:
     www.TheHungerSite.com

Hi,

I am using a full text catalog on a SQL Server 2000 on Win 2000 Advanced
server.

New entries are added daily to the database as well as updated entries.  The
catalog needs to be up to date and that is done through a scheduled
incremental
population of the catalog.  The number of records is approx. 300,000 records
with
4 columns indexed by the catalog in one table.

I noticed that the incremental population is taking as much time as the full
population (about 6 hours!!) if not even more.  At one time, I added less
than
0.5% new data that should have not caused a major work in the incremental
population.

Any one has any idea how to speed up the process specially when the
repopulation
has to occur daiy.

Also, ane one know any other indexing tool (other than built-in windows full
text
index) that can be used along with SQL server.

Your help is much appreciated.

Thanks

Ghamdan