# How many disks are used by one shard?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-disks-are-used-by-one-shard/47884>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 20, 2016, 9:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-disks-are-used-by-one-shard/47884 "2016-04-20T09:32:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![famoss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@famoss](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/famoss)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2016, 9:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-disks-are-used-by-one-shard/47884/1 "2016-04-20T09:32:23Z")

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[question1](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36737023/elasticsearchhow-to-make-a-balance-of-the-usage-of-disk?noredirect=1#comment61059094_36737023)([http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36737023/elasticsearchhow-to-make-a-balance-of-the-usage-of-disk?noredirect=1#comment61059094\_36737023](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36737023/elasticsearchhow-to-make-a-balance-of-the-usage-of-disk?noredirect=1#comment61059094_36737023)) tells me: the shards' files are all allocated on one path only and not spread on all paths. And ES will not try to balance the files between paths.

[question2](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36709408/elasticsearchper-shard-per-node-vs-multiple-shards-per-node) tells me:if you define more than one location (one per disk for example) it will use both disks and will benefit from the increased IOPS.

I am confused..

I just want to make the usage of the disk are almost equal.

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**Author:** ![cbuescher](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/cbuescher/32/60402_2.png) [@cbuescher](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/cbuescher)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2016, 10:01am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-disks-are-used-by-one-shard/47884/2 "2016-04-20T10:01:49Z")

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Hi,

before 2.0, if the 'path.data setting' listed multiple data paths, then a shard would be “striped” across all paths by writing a whole file to each path in turn. This had several problems which are explained in detail in this issue:

> <https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/9498>

So starting with 2.0 this is no longer supported. Instead all of the files in a single shard will be written to the same path:

[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/breaking\_20\_multiple\_literal\_data\_path\_literal\_striping.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/breaking_20_multiple_literal_data_path_literal_striping.html)

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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, 10:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-disks-are-used-by-one-shard/47884/3 "2017-07-05T22:57:44Z")

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