Overview

The purpose of this document is to provide advice on how FLOW Scan performance can be increased in certain workflows and circumstances by making configuration changes/choices on the system.

Prerequisites

A Flow installation with some knowledge of the workflow in use and the FLOW software

Process Steps

• Target Specific Folders: Instead of scanning an entire, large media space, point manual or scheduled scans at specific subfolders or run non-recursive scans at the root level. This prevents FLOW from reprocessing massive global datasets when only a small folder has changed.
• Select the Appropriate Scan Type:
  • Quick Scan: Only checks for new and modified files without full metadata re-extraction. This is the fastest option for routine updates.
  • Normal Scan: Updates new and modified files along with their metadata.
  • Full Scan: Full Scans check all files and re-apply metadata extraction rules across the entire space, taking the longest time. As such avoid frequent scans unless the workflow specifically requires it.
• Scan Individual Assets: When specific files need immediate proxy creation or database registration, perform an individual file scan rather than initiating a full media space scan.

• Increase Proxy Worker Slot Counts: In FLOW Control under Render Master / Proxy Worker settings, administrators can increase the slot count. This determines how many proxies are created simultaneously during a scan. Note: Increasing slot counts is CPU intensive and should primarily be done on dedicated worker hardware.
• Offload to Dedicated Worker Nodes: For large or multisite environments, offload scan and proxy creation tasks to dedicated FLOW Worker nodes local to the storage to distribute the processing load.

• Set Ignore Lists: Configure file-pattern Ignore Lists (e.g., ignoring .ts or temporary files) or Global Ignore List Directories in FLOW Control. This stops scan workers from wasting cpu cycles indexing irrelevant or temporary system files.

• Schedule Scans Off-Peak: Run automated media space scans during off-peak hours (such as overnight or outside shift hours) to minimize disruption to active users and prevent resource contention on storage and database servers.

• Turn Off Unused Mappings: If specific metadata mappings are not required for a particular production, disable them entirely. Even when no mappings are expected to succeed, the system still performs background checks on every file to confirm this.
  • Configuration: FLOW Control -> Metadata -> Mappings -> Select Mapping -> Settings -> Uncheck Enabled

• Restrict Matching Rules: The default storage matching rule attempts to evaluate metadata mappings across all spaces (*). Restrict this rule so matching is only attempted on spaces expected to contain relevant material.
  • Matching Examples:
    • "LSI*" matches all media spaces beginning with LSI
    • "*media" matches all media spaces ending in media
    • "rushes1,rushes2,rushes3" restricts matching strictly to those explicitly named spaces
  • Configuration: FLOW Control -> Metadata -> Mappings -> Select Mapping -> Settings -> Storage Match Rule