Should I turn off Spotlight on my MacBook Pro?

Question

macOS

Should I disable Spotlight in Mac OS X? MacBook Pro 13" late 2013 retina (latest) on 4Gb RAM / 128 HDD.
How much does this affect speed, battery life, etc.?

Answer 1

I did not notice an increase in speed or autonomy. But I can say one thing for sure: when disconnected, due to the use of the old cache, software updates through the AppStore will hang forever. That is, they will be installed, but the indicators "they say you have new updates" will not be shown, which is why you can install the same update 10 times in a row, which, firstly, is not comfortable, and secondly, I feel it can lead to more serious consequences.

Answer 2

The cache issue from the previous answer is local.
I advise you to start using it instead of turning it off - a very convenient thing, if you figure out what's what. After the release of Yosemite, alternatives like Alfred or Quicksilver will lose their current relevance.
To prevent indexing of sections with media, it is better to add them to the exclusion list. On a system with Spotlight active only on the system drive, it is difficult to detect a significant impact on battery life (but it is possible through Activity Monitor / Energy).
By the way, some applications may not work or behave incorrectly when Spotlight is disabled. For example, the Homebrew package manager depends on the standard mdfind file finder, which in turn relies on the Spotlight index.