# General question shard initialization in cluster

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-shard-initialization-in-cluster/22236>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 18, 2015, 12:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-shard-initialization-in-cluster/22236 "2015-02-18T12:45:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Marc\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Marc\_2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Marc_2)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 12:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-shard-initialization-in-cluster/22236/1 "2015-02-18T12:45:26Z")

</div>

I have a cluster with 2 data nodes. Each index has 5 primary shards and 1  
replica. Therefore, the data on both nodes should be identical, at least  
for indices that are not changed anymore.  
Before I restart/shut a node I disable routing allocation and once the node  
is up again I reactivate it.  
In most cases the intialization of a shard is really quick as the data is  
already there, but sometimes I seems that the whole data is recreated even  
though nothing was changed about this index in the meantime.  
Is that normal? And how to assure that the existing replica/primary shard  
on the rebooted node is reused?  
Did I miss something fundamental?

Cheers  
Marc

--  
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group.  
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).  
To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/a34c335e-9768-4ec7-bff5-dd75ac485249%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/a34c335e-9768-4ec7-bff5-dd75ac485249%40googlegroups.com).  
For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout).

---

<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:** [July 6, 2017, 12:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-shard-initialization-in-cluster/22236/2 "2017-07-06T00:31:54Z")

</div>