# Maximum Shard Size in ElasticSearch

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-shard-size-in-elasticsearch/35202>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 21, 2015, 5:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-shard-size-in-elasticsearch/35202 "2015-11-21T05:26:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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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:** [November 21, 2015, 5:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-shard-size-in-elasticsearch/35202/2 "2015-11-21T05:38:06Z")

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> [@Deb](#):
>
> It seems maximum shard size per index should be less than equal to the amount memory allocated to ES

Not really.

The maximum number of docs in a shard is 2^31, which is a lucene hard limit.  
Otherwise we recommend around ~50GB, as larger can be a problem when reallocating/recovering.

However use cases can vary and our advise does evolve. So as always, test to see if that size is ok for your requirements.

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