On 2026-05-16, [email protected] wrote: > I tend to avoid the use of find (1) because I never really "internalized" the > syntax) and (2) on the assumption that it hits the disk "harder" than locate. > > I mean, updatedb runs once a day (on my systems) and I assume (I know) that > its database is mostly cached somewhere, but I don't really know how it finds > new files. > > Is there any validity to the idea that find is harder on disks (hits them > more often / more widely) than locate?
When at my computer, I prefer to wait less. I do not run performance-sensitive workloads around the time /usr/lib/systemd/plocate-updatedb.timer runs (i.e.: during the night), so I am trading that disk access, done when I don't notice it, for responsiveness. For efficiency, you'd probably want to fine-tune indexing exclusion rules in /etc/updatedb.conf (avoiding work you won't use), and scheduling. Marco Ippolito [email protected]
