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Indexing Performance

When to Use

Use this when optimizing how fast content gets indexed, especially for large sites or initial indexing.

Decision

Scenario Recommended Batch Size Why
Simple nodes (title + body) 100-200 Low memory per item
Complex nodes (paragraphs, many references) 10-25 High memory per item (200MB+ per batch)
Initial full index Use drush, not cron More control over duration
Ongoing incremental 50-100 via cron Balance freshness vs load

Cron vs Drush:

Method Use Case Command
Cron Incremental indexing Automatic (set cron_limit on index)
Drush Initial indexing, reindexing, bulk drush sapi-i --batch-size=50 --time-limit=300
search_api_fast Large sites (10K+ items) Spawns parallel workers

Pattern

# Index all pending items
drush sapi-i

# With batch size and time limit
drush sapi-i --batch-size=25 --time-limit=600

# Mark everything for reindex
drush sapi-r my_index

# Clear index completely
drush sapi-c my_index

search_api_fast — for 10K+ nodes: 

composer require drupal/search_api_fast
drush search-api-fast:index my_index --workers=4

Cron frequency by site size:

Site Size Cron Interval Batch Size
Small (<10K items) 15 minutes 100
Medium (10K-100K) 5 minutes 50
Large (100K+) 1-2 minutes 25

Common Mistakes

  • Wrong: cron_limit = -1 on large indexes → Right: Indexes all items at once. Causes memory exhaustion on complex entities.
  • Wrong: cron_limit = 0 → Right: Disables cron indexing entirely. Items never get indexed via cron.
  • Wrong: Using cron for initial indexing → Right: Use drush with --time-limit for controlled batch indexing of large datasets.

See Also