# Active primary shards too many? Health status Yellow **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [June 13, 2018, 9:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674 "2018-06-13T09:46:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![thitami](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thitami/32/32205_2.png) [@thitami](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thitami)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 10:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/21 "2018-06-13T10:54:24Z")
Just fired up one more node, @Christian_Dahlqvist. Do you believe that will also resolve the kinda slow response times that I am currently having? ps: I am using `t2.small.elasticsearch` instance types ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 11:03am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/22 "2018-06-13T11:03:51Z")
That depends on what you are doing. `t2` instance types have very limited CPU allocated, so you can easily see poor performance if your workload uses a lot of CPU (well, it doesn't have to be a lot on those instances...). Using `m4.large` or `m5.large` instances will generally give you better and more predictable performance. ---
**Author:** ![thitami](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thitami/32/32205_2.png) [@thitami](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thitami)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 11:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/23 "2018-06-13T11:06:13Z")
Would not `m4.large` or `m5.large` be an overkill for 1000 documents? Again, I am a beginner with ES thus sorry for these basic questions, @Christian_Dahlqvist ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 11:07am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/24 "2018-06-13T11:07:38Z")
It probably would be overkill. If you only have that few documents I would reduce the number of primary shards for each index to 1. It is however not always the data size that alone drives the amount of resources needed. If you threw a lot of inefficient wildcard queries against a data set of you size, you could probably end up saturating CPU on these nodes even though all data is effectively cached. ---
**Author:** ![thitami](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thitami/32/32205_2.png) [@thitami](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thitami)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 1:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/25 "2018-06-14T13:19:39Z")
I have no words for your support yesterday, @Christian_Dahlqvist (and @tdasch ). This forum did not allow me to post more as a new user so here I come today back. One more question, if you don't mind? > If you only have that few documents I would reduce the number of primary shards for each index to 1. Would that bring me closer to reduce the response times from your point of view? ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 1:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/26 "2018-06-14T13:21:23Z")
More than one shard per index for those volumes are unnecessary given you only have one node, and yes, it can improve performance. ---
**Author:** ![thitami](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thitami/32/32205_2.png) [@thitami](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thitami)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 1:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/27 "2018-06-14T13:23:58Z")
I now have 3 nodes, if that makes any difference? ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 1:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/28 "2018-06-14T13:29:02Z")
Then I would still go with 1 primary shard, but 2 replicas so all nodes hold all data. ---
**Author:** ![thitami](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thitami/32/32205_2.png) [@thitami](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thitami)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 1:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/29 "2018-06-14T13:40:18Z")
Awesome! Thank you very much, @Christian_Dahlqvist. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 1:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674/30 "2018-07-12T13:40:23Z")
This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed. [Previous page](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/active-primary-shards-too-many-health-status-yellow/135674.md?page=1)