Following up on my last post “SharePoint 2013 Moving the Search Query Component to a WFE“, again, I’ve used a variety of others (blog) posts to do this in the past, some of which have gone offline and as such, I wanted to keep track of how to do this for myself, so I’ve gone ahead and grabbed the PowerShell from the following blog post.

SharePoint 2013 Search - Remove an index component; SharePoint 2013 Search - Add Index partition and I. Create and Configure SharePoint 2013 Search servic. Overview of search in SharePoint Server 2013 2016 (8) August (5) March (3) 2014 (1) March (1) 2013 (6). SharePoint Timer Service SharePoint Search Host Controller. Step 4: Reset Search Indexing content. On the SharePoint Central Administration home page in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications. On the Manage Search Applications page, click the search service application for which you want to reset the search index. How to find and set the search index location in SharePoint 2013. Posted on August 28, 2015 by Admin. With this post I’ll try to explain the complete step-by-step guide how to check and change Search Index Location in SharePoint 2013. Unfortunately in internet I found different posts but.

Once again, a great many thanks to Steve Mann for this post, and I truly appreciate your efforts in figuring out the proper PowerShell to do this correctly.

Step #1: Get the Search Service Instance and Start on the WFE
#Get Search Service Instance and Start on WFE
$ssi = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity “[[WFE Server Name]]”
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity $ssi

Step #2: Wait for the Search Service to Come Online
Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity $ssi

Step #3: Clone the Active Search Topology
#Clone Active Search Topology
$ssa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication
$active = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -SearchApplication $ssa -Active
$clone = New-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -SearchApplication $ssa -Clone –SearchTopology $active

Sharepoint Search Index Alternative

Step #4: Create the New Index Component on the WFE
#Create New Index Component for Index Partition 0
New-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $ssi -IndexPartition 0
-RootDirectory “E:SPIndex”

Ahead of time, a folder named SPIndex was created on the E: drive of the WFE. Modify this for your own location.

Step #5: Activate the Cloned Search Topology with the New Index Component
#Activate the Cloned Search Topology
Set-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Identity $clone

Step #6: Monitor the Distribution of the Index
Get-SPEnterpriseSearchStatus -SearchApplication $ssa

Step #7: Clone the Active Search Topology Again
# Clone Again
$ssa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication
$active = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -SearchApplication $ssa -Active
$clone = New-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -SearchApplication $ssa -Clone –SearchTopology $active

Sharepoint 2013 Indexing

Step #8: Get the ID of the Index Component to Remove
# Get the Index Search Component ID To Remove
$indexComponentID = (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchComponent -SearchTopology $clone -Identity IndexComponent3).componentID

**Note** in this instance, the component was IndexComponent3 – yours may be different.
Use Get-SPEnterpriseSearchStatus -SearchApplication $ssa to see which components you have.

Step #9: Remove the original Index Component
# Remove Search Component
Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchComponent -Identity $indexComponentID.GUID -SearchTopology $clone -confirm:$false

In this case there was two components on two servers so steps #8 and #9 were repeated.

Step #10: Activate Search Topology Again
# Activate Search Topology Again
Set-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Identity $clone

Step #11: Monitor the Distribution of the Index (this time it should be instantaneous)
Get-SPEnterpriseSearchStatus -SearchApplication $ssa

Once Again, all the credit to Steve Mann, much appreciated.