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Ask HN: Why can't we still search local disk the way we search online?

by strooper on 3/25/20, 12:43 PM with 8 comments

I am looking for some old content which I know exists in a 2TB backup drive using a Windows 10 machine. Despite using a modern machine, it has taken over 25 minutes and still is looking for it. Searching a nvme SSD doesn't significantly reduce the search time either.

I am wondering why can't we search our local contents and get almost instantaneous (or reasonable) results the same way we get from online search engines. How are these latest machines any better than machines a decade ago in improving user experience (other than entangling settings and silly visual stunts)?

Is there any tool or setup that may provide significantly better search experience in local machines (windows or linux)?

  • by raidicy on 3/25/20, 12:59 PM

    I have this app called Search Everything[0]. Allows you to search everything on your PC (I use Win10).

    The other option is using cmd prompt:

    DIR C:\myfile.txt /S

    No idea how with PowerShell

    [0]https://www.voidtools.com/

  • by a3n on 3/25/20, 12:52 PM

    When you search the web, the search engine has already indexed the web (and is doing so constantly). Your results come from hits in that index.

    If you want fast results searching your large local disk, you need to periodically index your disk in the background.

    I used such an indexer back around 2000. It was a Java program. I can't remember the name at all.

    There are probably more such indexers today.

  • by ChrisGranger on 3/25/20, 1:13 PM

    For Linux, the locate command from GNU Find Utilities is pretty fast if your index is up-to-date. I also really like fzf, the fuzzy-find tool.

    https://github.com/junegunn/fzf

  • by zapttt on 3/25/20, 1:31 PM

    1) becuase you don't how to use grep et al.

    2) because you don't use open formats.

    3) because you do have a minimally decent data organization and have to search too much data every time.

  • by generalpass on 3/25/20, 12:52 PM

    > ...using a Windows 10 machine.

    Case closed.

  • by paulbishop on 3/25/20, 1:00 PM

    for files use everything for enterprise use M-Files ...Case closed