# Backup size ~twice as large as index size - normal behavior?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-size-twice-as-large-as-index-size-normal-behavior/33870>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 5, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-size-twice-as-large-as-index-size-normal-behavior/33870 "2015-11-05T13:13:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![lwintergerst](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/lwintergerst/32/18164_2.png) [@lwintergerst](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/lwintergerst)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-size-twice-as-large-as-index-size-normal-behavior/33870/1 "2015-11-05T13:13:00Z")

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Hi,

i just made a snapshot of indices, with a combined size of 8.5GB.

The snapshot is about 16GB in size.

Is this normal for snapshots, or did I miss a setting/compression?

```
    PUT /_snapshot/backup1
{
    "type": "fs",
    "settings": {
        "location": "/mnt/nas/es_backup/backup1",
        "compress": true
    }
}

PUT /_snapshot/backup1/snapshot_2015_10_22
{
  "indices": "*10.22"
}

[root@prod00elastic11 backup1]# pwd
/mnt/nas/es_backup/backup1
[root@prod00elastic11 backup1]# du -sh *
1.0M index
16G indices
1.0M metadata-snapshot_2015_10_22
1.0M snapshot-snapshot_2015_10_22

```

I had a total of 50 indices, each with 5 shards and 1 replica if thats relevant

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lwintergerst](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/lwintergerst/32/18164_2.png) [@lwintergerst](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/lwintergerst)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 7:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-size-twice-as-large-as-index-size-normal-behavior/33870/2 "2015-11-10T19:50:41Z")

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@Pablo_Musa (hope that I'm pinging the right pablo here), you were right after all. The file system on my nfs messes something up. I guess I will have to look what I did wrong. This is definitely not an Elasticsearch issue 🙂

###first test:  
size on elasticsearch /data directory  
[root@prod00elastic07 wintelu]# du -sh test1.file  
**216K** test1.file

copy file to nfs backup path

size on elasticsearch /nfs directory

[root@prod00elastic07 backup1]# du -sh \*  
**_1.0M_** test1.file

five fold increase in size!

###second test:  
size on elasticsearch /data directory  
[root@prod00elastic07 wintelu]# du -sh test.file  
**3.8M** test.file

copy file to nfs backup path

size on elasticsearch /nfs directory  
[root@prod00elastic07 backup1]# du -sh test.file  
**_6.0M_** test.file

about 50% larger than before

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Pablo\_Musa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@Pablo\_Musa](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Pablo_Musa)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 11:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-size-twice-as-large-as-index-size-normal-behavior/33870/3 "2015-11-11T11:59:23Z")

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That is great to know Luca 😉

Good luck!

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<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:** [July 5, 2017, 11:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-size-twice-as-large-as-index-size-normal-behavior/33870/4 "2017-07-05T23:39:14Z")

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