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While trying to create a backup of the forum database I noticed it taking longer than usual , and when restoring it into another one on the same server it was taking much longer time, most of that time was spend on the log_search_words table , so I had to wonder.
I took a look at search settings at admin panel , its set to No index , but i have this :

Space used by forum messages in the database:
    64,592.30 KB
Space used to index messages in the database:
    85,339 KB
While all the other settings options says : Index: doesn't currently exist

Looking at database tables , trying to spot the bigger ones , it has this table
log_search_words    ~2,912,772 InnoDB utf8_unicode_ci 76.6 MiB

beside those :
log_notify                17,920         MyISAM utf8_general_ci  693 KiB
log_search_subjects 104,277         MyISAM utf8_general_ci         4.3 MiB
messages                50,601      MyISAM utf8_general_ci  69.8 MiB

the rest are zero or something much less in size

I have been messing around testing and getting to know all the available admin panel sections , and I might have turned things on then off again
So , do you think this is normal , or I should do something to perform faster backup and restore ?
please advise , thank you

The log_search_words is used by the custom index.
You may have enabled the custom index and created it, then disabled.
Doing so, the custom index is not explicitly dropped, you have to delete it.
If you don't use it, then it make sense to remove it.

Yes I must have done that indeed
Gonna delete it , and thanks for your reply

Personally, I either think logs are not so important or too big to backup. I just clear them up before doing one.

Some logs may be cleaned up, but others should absolutely not...