I'm currently dealing with a working directory on an SMB file share where my team does a lot of content-based searching for conflict checks. Unfortunately, this has become quite inefficient since we have exceeded the file count that Windows indexing supports. Sometimes, the search function only retrieves file names instead of actual content, which can be risky if users aren't aware of the problem.
While I understand that moving away from SMB to a more specialized solution is probably the best route, many options are either too pricey or not meeting our needs. We tried Practice Master but it didn't perform as expected, and Laserfiche was simply out of our budget.
I'm looking for a document management system that can connect to our SMB share and still allow users to work directly from it. There are tools like Nextcloud that support external storage and full-text search, but I'm not sure how practical they are. Alternatives like integrating a custom solution might also be an option, but I'm hesitant to overhaul our operations for just a couple of users checks. Any suggestions or experiences with similar situations?
1 Answer
You might want to check out Nextcloud. It supports external storage and has full-text search capabilities, though it can be a bit slow. But really, working directly with external storage isn't the way to go. You might need to rethink your data handling altogether! Also, if you're still using Windows Search, disable indexing for images and videos to reduce search clutter.
Good idea, I'll look into Nextcloud! I already use it at home, so it could work for our needs here. Also, I’ll take your advice about disabling image and video indexing.