I am trying annex for the first time.
I am trying it on windows (installed the beta).
My understanding from reading the docs is that it uses the repo in fully unlocked mode because windows does not support symlinks (or so git / git-annex believes).

I currently have about 55K files and 220GB... mostly pictures.

I have sidecar XMP files (text) next to each jpeg.
When I git add the XMP files, it is very very slow (about 1s per file).
When I do git status after adding them it takes minutes (refreshing index...).

I have a pretty powerful machine:
Processor	Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-7940X CPU @ 3.10GHz, 3096 Mhz, 14 Core(s), 28 Logical Processor(s)
128GB RAM
2TB NVMe SSD (~3GB/s symmetric transfer rate).

My gut feel is that it is because all the jpgs remain in the worktree as opposed to symlinked, but wanted to hear an expert opinion?
