# Disk-to-heap ratio for Frozen Indices?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-to-heap-ratio-for-frozen-indices/203945>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [October 17, 2019, 12:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-to-heap-ratio-for-frozen-indices/203945 "2019-10-17T00:18:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jonusko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3e96dc/32.png) [@jonusko](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jonusko)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 12:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-to-heap-ratio-for-frozen-indices/203945/1 "2019-10-17T00:18:07Z")

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The Elasticsearch documentation states...

> Because Elasticsearch does not maintain these transient data structures in memory, frozen indices consume much less heap than normal indices. This allows for a much higher disk-to-heap ratio than would otherwise be possible.

With a 30GB heap and shards in the 20-40GB range, I believe the recommendation for non-frozen shards per node would be 600 shards (20 shards/1GB of heap). I have not seen anything documented on what is a reasonable ratio for frozen indices. How many frozen shards can a node with a 30GB heap hold?

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**Author:** ![rugenl](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rugenl/32/12887_2.png) [@rugenl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rugenl)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 3:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-to-heap-ratio-for-frozen-indices/203945/2 "2019-10-17T03:59:01Z")

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Our observation; we have to keep the sum of thawed shard size under 9G but we are OK with 1800 shards (and growing) on cold nodes. We have about 10G (also growing) in frozen space used.

I don't have a stat gathered on the number of frozen vs. thawed shards.

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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:** [November 14, 2019, 3:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-to-heap-ratio-for-frozen-indices/203945/3 "2019-11-14T03:59:26Z")

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