# How to limit the number of shards per node in es version 1.7 or lower?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-limit-the-number-of-shards-per-node-in-es-version-1-7-or-lower/45771>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 30, 2016, 9:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-limit-the-number-of-shards-per-node-in-es-version-1-7-or-lower/45771 "2016-03-30T09:21:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dany](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dany/32/8131_2.png) [@dany](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dany)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 9:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-limit-the-number-of-shards-per-node-in-es-version-1-7-or-lower/45771/1 "2016-03-30T09:21:56Z")

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I am planning to use cluster.routing.allocation.total\_shards\_per\_node option to limit the shards per node. But this setting is available only from version 2.0 [as per the document].

my current version is 1.3.4. I can upgrade till 1.7 but not 2.0 because it has lot of breaking changes.

Is there any workaround to achieve this functionality in version 1.3 to 1.7 ?  
Any suggestions would be really helpful.

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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, 11:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-limit-the-number-of-shards-per-node-in-es-version-1-7-or-lower/45771/2 "2017-07-05T23:04:08Z")

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