# Elasticsearch read timeout, seems to have too many shards?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-read-timeout-seems-to-have-too-many-shards/37103>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [December 14, 2015, 8:13am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-read-timeout-seems-to-have-too-many-shards/37103 "2015-12-14T08:13:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wei\_Huang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dbc845/32.png) [@Wei\_Huang](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Wei_Huang)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 8:13am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-read-timeout-seems-to-have-too-many-shards/37103/1 "2015-12-14T08:13:41Z")

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I'm using both elasticsearch 1.4.4/2.1.0 with cluster of 5 hosts on AWS. In the config file, I've set index shard num to 10.  
So here comes the strange behavior: I created a index everyday, and when there's about 400 shards or more, the whole cluster returns Read Timeout when using Buik insert API. If I delete some indices, the timeout error disappeared. Anyone meets similar problem? This is really a big obstacle for storing more data

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 4:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-read-timeout-seems-to-have-too-many-shards/37103/2 "2015-12-15T04:42:17Z")

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How much data in the indices?

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 6:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-read-timeout-seems-to-have-too-many-shards/37103/3 "2015-12-15T06:54:27Z")

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What type of instances are you using? How much heap have you allocated to Elasticsearch? Do you see anything in the Elasticsearch logs?

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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:** [July 5, 2017, 11:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-read-timeout-seems-to-have-too-many-shards/37103/4 "2017-07-05T23:31:03Z")

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