# Index Recovery Initial Shards

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-recovery-initial-shards/5999>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 28, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-recovery-initial-shards/5999 "2011-11-28T19:39:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jjasinek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b782af/32.png) [@jjasinek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jjasinek)\
**Post date:** [November 28, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-recovery-initial-shards/5999/1 "2011-11-28T19:39:23Z")

</div>

I was reading the release notes for .18 and stumbled upon a new  
feature described under [https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/1163](https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/1163).  
Can anyone explain what that setting is for?

Thanks,  
Jason

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-recovery-initial-shards/5999/2 "2011-11-29T16:53:26Z")

</div>

Sure. The setting index.recovery.initial\_shards provides the following:

Basically, when using a local gateway, a "shard" will be recovered once a  
quorum of its copies are found among the nodes in the cluster.

Lets take N shard, with 1 replica (2 copies for each shard). The default  
(quorum) means that once a singe copy of a shard is found, it will be  
recovered. If you have 2 replicas (3 copies), it will only recover that  
shard once 2 copies are found.

You can set this setting, in case you lost a large number of nodes,  
and quorum is a too strict setting. You can actually set it on a "live"  
index (which is in a "red" state, obviously, because not all shards are  
recovered).

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 9:39 PM, jjasinek [jjasinek@gmail.com](mailto:jjasinek@gmail.com) wrote:

> I was reading the release notes for .18 and stumbled upon a new  
> feature described under  
> [Index Settings: Add `index.recovery.initial_shards` controlling the number of shards to exists when using local gateway · Issue #1163 · elastic/elasticsearch · GitHub](https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/1163).  
> Can anyone explain what that setting is for?
> 
> Thanks,  
> Jason

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jjasinek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b782af/32.png) [@jjasinek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jjasinek)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-recovery-initial-shards/5999/3 "2011-11-29T18:32:14Z")

</div>

Thanks Shay! Can I assume that if this property is not set that no default  
exists or that the default is really '1'.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-recovery-initial-shards/5999/4 "2011-11-30T14:55:16Z")

</div>

The default is for the setting is "quorum".

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 8:32 PM, jjasinek [jjasinek@gmail.com](mailto:jjasinek@gmail.com) wrote:

> Thanks Shay! Can I assume that if this property is not set that no  
> default exists or that the default is really '1'.

---

<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, 3:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-recovery-initial-shards/5999/5 "2017-07-06T03:46:55Z")

</div>