# Active\_primary\_shards \> 1 when you have more than 1 data node

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-1-when-you-have-more-than-1-data-node/255545>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 16, 2020, 1:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-1-when-you-have-more-than-1-data-node/255545 "2020-11-16T13:43:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![21908](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/21908/32/77808_2.png) [@21908](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/21908)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2020, 1:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-1-when-you-have-more-than-1-data-node/255545/1 "2020-11-16T13:43:49Z")

</div>

I have a 3 node Elasticsearch cluster. All nodes are data bearing nodes.

If active\_primary\_shards is set to 1 my data would not be distributed among the 3 nodes, is that a correct understanding? My single shard would be sitting on a single node. Wouldn't setting number of shards to 1 be defeating the purpose of having multiple nodes?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DavidTurner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/davidturner/32/22453_2.png) [@DavidTurner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DavidTurner)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-1-when-you-have-more-than-1-data-node/255545/2 "2020-11-16T16:04:42Z")

</div>

No, you could (for instance) set `number_of_shards: 1` and `number_of_replicas: 2` to have a copy of the shard on every node, all of which will respond to searches.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![21908](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/21908/32/77808_2.png) [@21908](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/21908)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2020, 4:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-1-when-you-have-more-than-1-data-node/255545/3 "2020-11-16T16:10:34Z")

</div>

Thank you, I'm starting to understand better now.

Only after I start to hit data limits for a single shard, would increasing "number of shards" make sense.

If I have 150GB of data and a 3 node cluster, where all 3 nodes are data bearing, then it would make sense to set "number of shards" to 3, would you agree?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DavidTurner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/davidturner/32/22453_2.png) [@DavidTurner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DavidTurner)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-1-when-you-have-more-than-1-data-node/255545/4 "2020-11-16T16:22:13Z")

</div>

It depends™ 😄 Specifically the details of your data and how you are indexing & searching it will affect the answer here. But as a starting point `number_of_shards: 3` on a 150GB index sounds reasonable to me.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-1-when-you-have-more-than-1-data-node/255545/5 "2020-12-14T16:22:14Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.