# Freeing up disk space (again)
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/freeing-up-disk-space-again/78484
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [March 14, 2017, 9:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/freeing-up-disk-space-again/78484 "2017-03-14T09:31:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@juliann](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/juliann)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2017, 9:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/freeing-up-disk-space-again/78484/1 "2017-03-14T09:31:45Z")
We store our ES 5.2 data on a separate D drive on a Windows platform (syslog01) - and it has become full.
Having Googled and gone through the forum, first I tried deleting some indices using the DELETE method and Postman :
[http://syslog01:9200/winlogbeat-2016\*](http://syslog01:9200/winlogbeat-2016*)
[http://syslog01:9200/netflow-2016\*](http://syslog01:9200/netflow-2016*)
Free disk space reported by the OS remained unchanged.
Then I tried using [http://syslog01:9200/\_forcemerge?only\_expunge\_deletes=true](http://syslog01:9200/_forcemerge?only_expunge_deletes=true) (\_optimize suggested elsewhere did not work)
We see returned: {"\_shards":{"total":833,"successful":417,"failed":0}} - but free disk space reported by the OS still remained unchanged.
Is the 416 difference between "total" and "successful" the 2016 indices deleted above?
Finally, I then installed Python etc and ran curator and removed another 14 indices. Success! Some disk space was freed up - but only that of the 14 indices. Moving forward I now have a solution - so now I have to recover the space from the indices "deleted" previously.
Any suggestions or ideas please?
Thanks
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### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2017, 6:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/freeing-up-disk-space-again/78484/2 "2017-03-14T18:12:28Z")
What Windows version?
What does the output of `_cat/indices` show?
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### Author:  [@juliann](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/juliann)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 9:37am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/freeing-up-disk-space-again/78484/3 "2017-03-15T09:37:08Z")
Thanks for the reply.
Windows Server 2012R2
\_cat/indices shows a total of 98 indices made up of:
14 - .monitoring-\*
1 - .security (we had X-pack trial, now uninstalled)
1- .kibana
6 - winlogbeat-2017\* (from some testing we were doing)
76 - logstash-netflow9-2017\*
None of the earlier 2016 indicies that I deleted (see first message) are listed.
The total size (adding up last column) is about 200Gb and Windows now reports 21Gb free on a 220Gb disk - which looks consistent.
Repeating the above forcemerge I also now see {"\_shards":{"total":843,"successful":422,"failed":0}} - but of course new indicies are created daily.
The winlogbeat-2017\* and logstash-netflow9-2017\* each show 5 shards per index - the others just 1 - which makes a total of 426 - not quite 422 - not sure if it ought to be?
I have tried [http://syslog01:9200/\_cat/allocation/?v](http://syslog01:9200/_cat/allocation/?v)
I see:
shards disk.indices disk.used disk.avail disk.total disk.percent host ip node
422 196.6gb 197.4gb 22.5gb 219.9gb 89 10.10.101.83 10.10.101.83 -pdpZDq
421 UNASSIGNED
I am very confused - before I ran the first delete and removed approximately half the indicies we were using 199Gb (as reported by the OS) - now with half as many indices I am still using same disk space!
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2017, 9:37am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/freeing-up-disk-space-again/78484/4 "2017-04-12T09:37:12Z")
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