# Are replica shards used when there is no failover?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/are-replica-shards-used-when-there-is-no-failover/230217>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 28, 2020, 4:58pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/are-replica-shards-used-when-there-is-no-failover/230217 "2020-04-28T16:58:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Clony](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/clony/32/44738_2.png) [@Clony](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Clony)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 4:58pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/are-replica-shards-used-when-there-is-no-failover/230217/1 "2020-04-28T16:58:46Z")

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I wonder if replica shards are used when a query is performed in order to load balanced between primaries and replicas or replicas ONLY comes into action when there is a fail in any primary?

thanks in advance.

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**Author:** ![KoettingSimon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba9def/32.png) [@KoettingSimon](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/KoettingSimon)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/are-replica-shards-used-when-there-is-no-failover/230217/2 "2020-04-28T17:23:36Z")

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Hi,  
By default replica shard are used to compute search requests. If you are interested in more details about to control which replica should be used read here: [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-request-body.html#request-body-search-preference](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-request-body.html#request-body-search-preference)

Regards,  
Simon

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Clony](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/clony/32/44738_2.png) [@Clony](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Clony)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 7:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/are-replica-shards-used-when-there-is-no-failover/230217/3 "2020-04-28T19:04:53Z")

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Thank you very much

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/are-replica-shards-used-when-there-is-no-failover/230217/4 "2020-05-26T19:05:00Z")

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