What takes up more space for search components?

Question

What takes up more space for search components; the index size on the file system or the property store DB?

Answer 1

Based on suggsted capacity planning guide, Index takes more space than property database:

Property Database - 1.5% of Content Database
Index - 3.5% of Content Database (single partition)

Again, there could be several IFs and BUTs, above guideline helps when you start planning. Check below (and there could be more on technet):

http://www.sharepointsharon.com/2010/09/sizing-pt2-databases/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/nitinsha/archive/2011/04/06/capacity-planning-for-enterprise-search-part-1.aspx

Answer 2

Ashish Patel has good advise for capacity planning comparing property DB and the search Index size.

Also remember to consider the processing requirements an index services puts on a server when capacity planning and provisioning infrastructure.