# Adding another disk to an ES node **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [January 20, 2013, 7:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/adding-another-disk-to-an-es-node/10425 "2013-01-20T07:11:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![otisg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/otisg/32/492_2.png) [@otisg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/otisg)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 7:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/adding-another-disk-to-an-es-node/10425/1 "2013-01-20T07:11:36Z")
Hi, Is there a way to change path.dir (see [http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/setup/dir-layout.html](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/setup/dir-layout.html) ) on a live cluster, say when one wants to add new disks to ES servers and tell ES to start using them? Also, once a new disk is added to an ES node (even if it requires ES node restart), how will ES start using it? It sounds like it would immediately switch writing to just that disk because ES would see that new disk has more free space than the old one(s)? If so, does that mean it would start writing to all disks only once the new one is equally full as the old one(s)? ## Thanks, Otis ELASTICSEARCH Performance Monitoring - [http://sematext.com/spm/index.html](http://sematext.com/spm/index.html) -- ---
**Author:** ![Igor\_Motov](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/igor_motov/32/45193_2.png) [@Igor\_Motov](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Igor_Motov)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/adding-another-disk-to-an-es-node/10425/2 "2013-01-21T19:57:18Z")
> Is there a way to change path.dir (see > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/setup/dir-layout.html) ) on a > live cluster, say when one wants to add new disks to ES servers and tell ES > to start using them? I think the only way to do this is by doing rolling restart. > Also, once a new disk is added to an ES node (even if it requires ES node > restart), how will ES start using it? It sounds like it would immediately > switch writing to just that disk because ES would see that new disk has > more free space than the old one(s)? Correct. All new files will be created on the disc with the most available free space. > If so, does that mean it would start writing to all disks only once the > new one is equally full as the old one(s)? Correct. -- ---
**Author:** ![otisg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/otisg/32/492_2.png) [@otisg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/otisg)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/adding-another-disk-to-an-es-node/10425/3 "2013-01-23T17:20:55Z")
Hi Igor, On Monday, January 21, 2013 2:57:18 PM UTC-5, Igor Motov wrote: > Is there a way to change path.dir (see > > > [Elastic — The Search AI Company | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/setup/dir-layout.html) ) on > > a live cluster, say when one wants to add new disks to ES servers and tell > > ES to start using them? > > I think the only way to do this is by doing rolling restart. Why rolling if you need to add a disk to just 1 server? Then just that 1 server would need to be restarted, right? Would it make sense to expose an API that tells ES "Hey, go look at the config and reload it, I added something to it"? > Also, once a new disk is added to an ES node (even if it requires ES node > > > restart), how will ES start using it? It sounds like it would immediately > > switch writing to just that disk because ES would see that new disk has > > more free space than the old one(s)? > > Correct. All new files will be created on the disc with the most available > free space. > > > If so, does that mean it would start writing to all disks only once the > > new one is equally full as the old one(s)? > > Correct. I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this list mention using multiple disks in this way. Anything one should be aware of when this writing across all disks starts happening? Is there any parallelization involved that would actually improve write throughput as more disks are added? ## Thanks, Otis ELASTICSEARCH Performance Monitoring - [Sematext Monitoring | Infrastructure Monitoring Service](http://sematext.com/spm/index.html) -- ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 2:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/adding-another-disk-to-an-es-node/10425/4 "2017-07-06T02:54:56Z")