"mds" process run time schedule

[R.L. Grigg]

On Jul 18, 2007, at 8:27 AM, James Bucanek wrote:
>
>> Is there some way to schedule when process "mds" runs? This is the  
>> spotlight indexing process I think. It always runs at the wrong  
>> time and slows the machines to a crawl as it go wild on the disk  
>> even if I kill -9 it just comes right back. Where is this thing  
>> controlled?
>
> mds runs all of the time. It's triggered by the (undocumented) file  
> system events service in 10.4. Whenever a file or folder changes, a  
> notification is sent to mds and it immediately begins reindexing  
> the modified documents.

I can understand if it needs to "all the time" in little bursts here  
and there but it seems to crank and crank on the disk all the time  
disproportionate to the changes to the file system. On a quiet system  
looking at Activity Monitor mds is doing 6.0 MB/sec reads and 5.31 MB/ 
sec writes and has been going all day like this. This is crazy. Its  
like its constantly reindexing everything all the time.
>
> I know of no way of interrupting or deferring this process unless  
> there are some hidden configuration parameters somewhere or you  
> simply disable Spotlight indexing.

How do you disable Spotlight indexing? Id like to give it a try.
Russ