# How many documents can one Index/shard hold?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-documents-can-one-index-shard-hold/91200>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [June 28, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-documents-can-one-index-shard-hold/91200 "2017-06-28T22:16:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![vikas\_gopal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vikas_gopal/32/47661_2.png) [@vikas\_gopal](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/vikas_gopal)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-documents-can-one-index-shard-hold/91200/1 "2017-06-28T22:16:21Z")

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Hi Elasticsearch Experts,

Do we have any thumb rule that these many documents one index/shard can hold. Let me share my scenario . I have 8-10GB data volume per day in elasticsearch now rather creating per day index I am creating per week index with 5 shards. So my per index(for whole week ) holds around 60-70 GB without replica. Users reporting slowness in the dashboard . My hardware is 16 core 64 GB ram machine . Right now I have assigned 16GGB RAM to ES.

So my Concern are

1. How would I index data , per day or weekly with 5 shards , or do I go with weekly with 10 shards ?
2. Do I need to increase my ES RAM like 16 to 20 GB?
3. Right now I have 2 nodes in cluster , Do I need more nodes to speed up the process ?
4. Do we have any recommendation from elasticsearch that I should hold this much of data in one shard or Index.

Please provide your expert advice .

Regards  
VG

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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:** [June 28, 2017, 10:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-documents-can-one-index-shard-hold/91200/2 "2017-06-28T22:40:37Z")

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A shard is limited to 2 billion docs as that is a lucene limit.

> [@vikas\_gopal](#):
>
> Users reporting slowness in the dashboard

Are you using the Monitoring functionality?

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**Author:** ![vikas\_gopal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vikas_gopal/32/47661_2.png) [@vikas\_gopal](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/vikas_gopal)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2017, 10:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-documents-can-one-index-shard-hold/91200/3 "2017-06-28T22:57:19Z")

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Thanks Mark,

For monitoring I have enabled slow query parameter in kibana.With this I am checking which query is taking more than 5 sec and so on.

Regards  
Vg

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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:** [June 28, 2017, 11:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-documents-can-one-index-shard-hold/91200/4 "2017-06-28T23:33:06Z")

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Then I'd suggest you use Monitoring to see what's going on/

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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 26, 2017, 11:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-many-documents-can-one-index-shard-hold/91200/5 "2017-07-26T23:33:20Z")

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