# Increase in shard count vs increase in shard size - Performance comparison

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/increase-in-shard-count-vs-increase-in-shard-size-performance-comparison/347984
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [November 26, 2023, 7:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/increase-in-shard-count-vs-increase-in-shard-size-performance-comparison/347984 "2023-11-26T07:04:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![sriapr98](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/sriapr98/32/121815_2.png) [@sriapr98](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/sriapr98)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2023, 7:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/increase-in-shard-count-vs-increase-in-shard-size-performance-comparison/347984/1 "2023-11-26T07:04:19Z")

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Currently we are creating an index which will take space of around 900GB. We are not able to use ILM because there are updates possible to any older data as well.

So the only option left to us is sharding optimization where we are currently in a dilemma on which of the below options we can go ahead with

**Option 1:** Keep number of shards as 24 with capacity of 37GB per shard  
**Option 2:** Keep number of shards as 18 with capacity of 50GB per shard

Our main operation where optimization is needed is search as we are okay to slow down the ingestion by a bit.

Basically we want to understand which of the above options is preffered.

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### Author: ![DavidTurner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/davidturner/32/22453_2.png) [@DavidTurner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DavidTurner)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2023, 7:34am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/increase-in-shard-count-vs-increase-in-shard-size-performance-comparison/347984/2 "2023-11-26T07:34:08Z")

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It depends on your exact workload, or indeed there may be no difference. The only way to tell would be to [run your own benchmarks](https://esrally.readthedocs.io/en/stable/).

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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: [December 24, 2023, 7:34am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/increase-in-shard-count-vs-increase-in-shard-size-performance-comparison/347984/3 "2023-12-24T07:34:32Z")

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