Data partition and IntelliJ IDEA external file sync speed

I recently reconfigured the filesystem on my laptop so I can share my data with a second Linux. The Linux used in this matter is Fedora 28, 64-bit. My disks are now laid out like so: /dev/sda: - /dev/sda1 - efi partition - /dev/sda2 - swap - /dev/sda3 - data partition mounted via /etc/fstab at /media/data_partition /dev/sdb: - /dev/sdb1 - root partition mounted at / - /dev/sdb2 - var partition mounted at /var - /dev/sdb3 - home partition mounted at /home The data partition now contains the contents of /opt, everything under $HOME/Documents and some miscellaneous stuff. They are on the partition with the some directory names (i.e. opt/, Documents/) At boot, after the partition is mounted, I have a bindfs mount that mounts /media/data_partition/opt to /opt, and on login in my $HOME/.bash_profile, I bindfs mount /media/data_partition/Documents to $HOME/Documents. When I boot up IntelliJ IDEA, it shows the following: Currently I have open a project "located" at $HOME/Documents/University/Class/project_repo3. $HOME/Documents is the destination for a bind mount from /media/data_partition/Documents. Also, IntelliJ IDEA's installation is located in /media/data_partition/opt. This location is the source for a bind mount to /opt The mount seems to be IntelliJ's problem, but I have no idea what the actual issue is, nor which bind mount is the problem. I found these links: - https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115000013130-External-file-changes-sync-may-be-slow - https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-192665 - https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2010/04/native-file-system-watcher-for-linux/ The last link explains their new usage of inotify and would seem to explain the problem and the solution, but I'm not 100%. I don't wanna change anything, and regret it later. The questions: - Is the solution proposed in the last link safe and correct? - What is inotify (I read part of the manpage, but would appreciate additional explanation)? - What are inotify watchers, and inotify instances?