Key Points

The key points learned during the Deployment phase and index testing were:

• The test crawled about 3 million documents, with the largest catalog averaging 970 documents per minute. This represented a nearly threefold increase over 330 documents per minute with Site Server 3. In addition, SharePoint Portal Server crawled a larger number of documents and more diverse file types.
• Although comparable, the SharePoint Portal Server deployment used hardware that is more powerful.
• Adaptive crawling reduced crawling time from 51 hours to less than 8 hours. This represents a sevenfold increase.
• By using adaptive crawling, SharePoint Portal Server updates the largest index nightly instead of weekly. This results in more timely and relevant information.
• Additional RAM and processors make a significant difference in crawl performance with SharePoint Portal Server.
• To improve performance, optimize the site rules and content sources.