Elasticsearch efficiently cleaning up the indices to save space

Makes sense, thanks for that. I was looking at the "Roll over pattern". I guess this approach could for work me (although it doesn't directly support the size). But I guess it's easy to work out though.

Basically, I can:

  • Periodically partition the index based on (age/no of documents) - using the roll over api.

  • Periodically check the historically rolled over indices and delete them by age or size (which might result in unintended documents to be deleted though).

Question: Any downside of having too many indices (physical/concrete indices as a result of roll ups) for an alias? I understand every index has a maintenance overhead. Is this recommended?