User story: As a customer, I would like to be able to set the configuration for Jira Assets indexing on startup, and know whether Atlassian's expectation is that loading from a file makes the startup take more time, or whether they expect loading from a file will make the startup take less time. 

The problem

Across multiple versions of documentation and associated screens for Jira Service Management assets configuration, there is contradictory information on whether enabling "Restore Assets index from file" will make start up times longer or shorter

Version 10.0 says that enabling restore from file will make start up shorter
https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicemanagementserver100/indexing-assets-in-jira-service-management-1488593478.html

Version 10.3 says that enabling restore from file will make start up slower
https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicemanagementserver103/indexing-assets-in-jira-service-management-1488596233.html

Version 11.0 says that enabling restore from file will make start up shorter
https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicemanagementserver110/indexing-assets-in-jira-service-management-1627464072.html#IndexingAssetsinJiraServiceManagement-configuration

But the screen shot for the UI shows the field level help says
"(enabling this will) increase startup time by restoring Assets index from a file. Unchecking this will cause slower startup time..."

Version 11.3 has removed the text in the page that says what this field does, and all we're left with is the self referentially inconsistent field level help text that says that checking makes startup slower, and that unchecking makes startup slower.

 

Logically, we'd guess that the answer is that loading from a file goes faster, but introduces the risk that a corrupted index file on disk will then be used... whereas rebuilding the index from scratch on startup will mean you're sure the index is right, but if you've got a lot of assets then that might take a long time.

Unfortunately the documentation's lack of clarity means that is just a guess.