# Elasticsearch's default index recovery prioritisation for historical data

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearchs-default-index-recovery-prioritisation-for-historical-data/168203>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 13, 2019, 11:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearchs-default-index-recovery-prioritisation-for-historical-data/168203 "2019-02-13T11:45:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adaisley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@adaisley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/adaisley)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2019, 11:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearchs-default-index-recovery-prioritisation-for-historical-data/168203/1 "2019-02-13T11:45:14Z")

</div>

Hi,

We're reviewing what indices should be prioritised when our Elasticsearch cluster restarts, and before making modifications using settings.priority, we were wondering if Elasticsearch, by default uses some sort of logic to decide to bring up newer indexes over historical indexes?

For example, say I have two indexes:  
example-2019.06  
example-2019.07

If ES did have the logic I described, example-2019.07 would be brought up first, followed by 2019.06.

I can't find anywhere that says it does, however.

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adaisley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@adaisley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/adaisley)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2019, 12:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearchs-default-index-recovery-prioritisation-for-historical-data/168203/2 "2019-02-13T12:09:23Z")

</div>

I'm an idiot and didn't notice the following text on [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/recovery-prioritization.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/recovery-prioritization.html)

Unallocated shards are recovered in order of priority, whenever possible. Indices are sorted into priority order as follows:

- the optional `index.priority` setting (higher before lower)
- the index creation date (higher before lower)
- the index name (higher before lower)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adaisley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@adaisley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/adaisley)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearchs-default-index-recovery-prioritisation-for-historical-data/168203/3 "2019-02-13T12:12:33Z")

</div>

My followup question would be:

Can you set index.priority through settings in index templates?

---

<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:** [March 13, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearchs-default-index-recovery-prioritisation-for-historical-data/168203/4 "2019-03-13T12:12:44Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.