When I order files by an unusual meta column, does the computer read headers of the files or just a structured list like a data table?

Question

Is there a file system which will reduce the need for indexing files and saves the meta headers automatically on the disk? It would work like a hardware acceleration for indexing all files for some cost of write-update time, by making searches faster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_file_attributes this is what I have found so far

Answer 1

From the link,

Extended file attributes is a file system feature that enables users to associate computer files with metadata not interpreted by the filesystem

Unless I'm misreading that, the metadata stored in extended file attributes function essentially as post-it-notes attached to the file, but not in the file. As such, they are stored with the file, and wouldn't necessarily have any affect on indexing.

Unless this metadata is something that the indexing routine and the [notice changes to files] system of whatever system you're using would actually be looking for, making changes to this metadata won't necessarily do anything.