Question on Spotlight on external drive

[dolorossa]

Hey guys,

I know that Spotlight can work on an external drive, but I was wondering: does Spotlight store the search index on the external drive itself or does it store it on the same volume that the OS is running on?

The reason I ask is this: can I get one of my really fast Mac pro's to index a drive and then just plug that drive into my Macbook and instantly query it without having to wait for an hour-long indexing process?

 

[Weaselboy]

The Spotlight index is stored on each drive in a hidden file /.Spotlight-V100 .

It should not reindex when you plug it back in.

 

[dolorossa]

Thanks much! I am relieved to hear that.