All the indices and transcodes are stored on your hard drive in a folder called .cedata - as long as that folder is still intact, you won't have to reindex when you unplug your drive. Any new files that get added will, of course, have to go through the process, but the time it takes is proportional to the number of files, so it won't take that long again unless you add many thousands of files to the drive.

As to your question on movie streaming - the web application requires movies to be in a specific format (h.264 codec) in order to play - the transcode feature of your Pogoplug makes that happen. Usually, when you're streaming from the website you also have far less bandwidth, so the version we create is also smaller, so the video will play with less jerkiness.

When you use the drive application and double click on a movie, the movie is played in whatever software you use on your computer - quicktime, windows media, vlc, etc - most of those applications can support a large range of file types, so they don't need to be transcoded.

It is the same for streaming - the transcodes are actual files that also live in .cedata - as long as they are there you don't need to create new ones.

Glad you like your Pogoplug - we think it's pretty awesome too :D