# Elasticsearch Cluster | Total Shards number of Cluster not matching addition of individual shards number of nodes **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [February 26, 2019, 6:03am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-cluster-total-shards-number-of-cluster-not-matching-addition-of-individual-shards-number-of-nodes/169943 "2019-02-26T06:03:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nikesh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nikesh/32/86579_2.png) [@Nikesh](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Nikesh)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 6:03am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-cluster-total-shards-number-of-cluster-not-matching-addition-of-individual-shards-number-of-nodes/169943/1 "2019-02-26T06:03:05Z")
Hi, I am using kibana to monitor and visualize my Elastic Cluster. As I see, the total number of shards in Cluster is 1242 where as the addition of shards of individual nodes is different. Each of my three data nodes are 828 which adds up to 2484 shards. Which is exactly the double of total shards present in Cluster. ![cluster%20shards%20number](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/b/7/b7ef4099f46728151b19aaf69cdcc71b47ac3793.png) ---
**Author:** ![DavidTurner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/davidturner/32/22453_2.png) [@DavidTurner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DavidTurner)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 11:12am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-cluster-total-shards-number-of-cluster-not-matching-addition-of-individual-shards-number-of-nodes/169943/2 "2019-02-26T11:12:50Z")
I am going to guess that every one of your indices has one replica, so you have 1242 primary shards in the cluster and 1242 replicas, adding up to 2484. Admittedly this does seem to be confusingly inconsistent. Your average shard is 115MB and contains ~16000 documents, which is pretty tiny. You should try and have fewer, larger, shards: > **[How many shards should I have in my Elasticsearch cluster? | Elastic](https://www.elastic.co/blog/how-many-shards-should-i-have-in-my-elasticsearch-cluster)** > > Elasticsearch is a very versatile platform, that supports a variety of use cases, and provides great flexibility around data organisation and replication strategies. This flexibility can however somet... ---
**Author:** ![Nikesh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nikesh/32/86579_2.png) [@Nikesh](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Nikesh)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 1:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-cluster-total-shards-number-of-cluster-not-matching-addition-of-individual-shards-number-of-nodes/169943/3 "2019-02-26T13:25:16Z")
Thanks David for the response > [@DavidTurner](#): > > so you have 1242 primary shards in the cluster 1242 is the total shards including both primary and replica shards. ---
**Author:** ![DavidTurner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/davidturner/32/22453_2.png) [@DavidTurner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DavidTurner)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 2:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-cluster-total-shards-number-of-cluster-not-matching-addition-of-individual-shards-number-of-nodes/169943/4 "2019-02-26T14:06:34Z")
> [@Nikesh](#): > > 1242 is the total shards including both primary and replica shards. In which case I don't understand what the UI is saying. Can you share the full output of `GET _cluster/health` and `GET _cat/shards`? The latter will be quite large so you may need to use [https://gist.github.com](https://gist.github.com). ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2019, 2:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-cluster-total-shards-number-of-cluster-not-matching-addition-of-individual-shards-number-of-nodes/169943/5 "2019-03-26T14:06:36Z")
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