No Search/Indexing of non-Apple Servers?

[elgrayso]

We used to have our servers spotlight/alfred searchable  at the office. We have Synology servers now and our IT guy told me that Spotlight indexing/searching is no longer possible with non-Apple servers, and since apple no longer makes servers, indexing/searching is now a thing of the past. Is this true, is there no workaround? 

[Vero]

@elgrayso The reason Apple servers used to be searchable is because the server itself would maintain a metadata index for the drive's content, which your local Mac could then use. Synology doesn't do anything of the sort. 

 

While it's possible to fudge a way for your Mac to temporarily index the contents of a shared network drive, as soon as it disconnects, it loses resolution of the content (which is also being modified by other users accessing the same drive). As such, any index you'd locally be holding would become outdated/stale.

 

You can always use File Navigation to use Alfred's speedy navigation through the external volume, and then search within individual folders, which may be sufficient for what you need.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[elgrayso]

thank you for clearing that up and confirming