Moving SharePoint Index location to another drive but gatherer still uses default location

Question

I'm in the process of moving the index location for SharePoint 2016 from C drive to a dedicated drive. I used the method to clone the topology, modify and then activate it but I have conflicting results.

When I check the search components I can see that the index component has the new root location (S:\SearchData) but when I check it using different commands I get different results.

As you can see from the search service instance it tells me that it's still set to the old default location. The same when listing components from the search service application. BUT when I view the actual active topology, the index component seems to be set correctly to the S drive. Currently I'm running a full crawl and I can see the S drive filling slowly but the size of the default location increases dramatically during crawl and then it releases the space. Does anyone has an explanation for this or I'm just doing something wrong? Also is it possible to change this location as wel? I couldn't find anything on the internet, just these articles describing the same issue but with no answer.

https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/254307/change-default-index-location-of-search-service-instance-on-sharepoint-2013] https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/35490a80-0caa-45b2-b40d-cc173e544fe3/moving-the-index-location-in-sharepoint-2013?forum=sharepointgeneral

 $ssi = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance
 $ssi.Components

Id : 4e6ec89d-b6da-4fc7-bf47-3575d7936f98

ServerName : FrontEnd

IndexLocation : C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\16.0\Data\Office Server\Applications

State : Ready

DesiredState : Ready

IndexLocation : C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\16.0\Data\Office Server\Applications

Initialized : True

Name : cdd83138-e432-4561-b796-2148fd2dda6a

ServerName : FrontEnd

ServerId : c1676a68-43c4-4653-a80f-86b3b50ee93f

Server : SearchServiceInstance

$ssa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication 
$ssa.AdminComponent.IndexLocation

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\16.0\Data\Office Server\Applications

  Get-SPEnterpriseSearchComponent -SearchTopology $ssa.ActiveTopology

ComponentId : 9bf74bfd-4235-4cc4-a9f1-21a75e623a02

TopologyId : 22c97d72-2969-43dc-922f-09813f232f3a

ServerId : c1676a68-43c4-4653-a80f-86b3b50ee93f

Name : AdminComponent1

ServerName : FrontEnd

ExperimentalComponent : False

ComponentId : 5358ddcc-7c66-490e-802a-2fba96f8ebba

TopologyId : 22c97d72-2969-43dc-922f-09813f232f3a

ServerId : c1676a68-43c4-4653-a80f-86b3b50ee93f

Name : QueryProcessingComponent1

ServerName : FrontEnd

ExperimentalComponent : False

IndexPartitionOrdinal : 0

RootDirectory : S:\SearchData

ComponentId : 27c6772b-ed60-4ec6-86af-35195de0320e

TopologyId : 22c97d72-2969-43dc-922f-09813f232f3a

ServerId : c1676a68-43c4-4653-a80f-86b3b50ee93f

Name : IndexComponent1

ServerName : FrontEnd

ExperimentalComponent : False

ComponentId : f793411d-443c-47bb-9eed-6eaea7788919

TopologyId : 22c97d72-2969-43dc-922f-09813f232f3a

ServerId : c1676a68-43c4-4653-a80f-86b3b50ee93f

Name : ContentProcessingComponent1

ServerName : FrontEnd

ExperimentalComponent : False

ComponentId : 14f80f1e-dfe4-411a-ab1a-7fe21bed2350

TopologyId : 22c97d72-2969-43dc-922f-09813f232f3a

ServerId : c1676a68-43c4-4653-a80f-86b3b50ee93f

Name : CrawlComponent0

ServerName : FrontEnd

ExperimentalComponent : False

Answer 1

Maybe you can update the DefaultIndexLocation first and then update the topology as you're doing

$server = "ServerName"
$IndexLocation= "S:\SearchData" 

$server | % { 
    $svcInst = (Get-SPServer -Identity $_).serviceinstances | ? { $_.GetType().FullName -eq "Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance" } 
    $svcInst.DefaultIndexLocation = $IndexLocation 
    $svcInst.Update() 
    
}