# Node uses too much memory, I think
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/node-uses-too-much-memory-i-think/13385
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [August 29, 2013, 7:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/node-uses-too-much-memory-i-think/13385 "2013-08-29T07:45:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@forkurt](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/forkurt)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2013, 7:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/node-uses-too-much-memory-i-think/13385/1 "2013-08-29T07:45:26Z")
Hello guys.
I run ES on 3 nodes with 20 shards and 1 replica.
Each node runs on 8 core cpu, 16GB memory server, and I set heap size 8GB
to JVM option.
I set -Dbootstrap.mlockall=true, -Des.index.cache.field.type=soft options.
There is 350 millions docs whose size is 650GB total in ES.
When I start entire nodes and after cluster's health become green stat,
each node uses almost 6.5 - 7.9 GB even though there's no actual search or
insert request.
Is it normal? Should I use bigger memory server for this size of data?
Please give me an advise.
Thanks.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).
For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out).
---
### Author:  [@Ivan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Ivan)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/node-uses-too-much-memory-i-think/13385/2 "2013-08-29T21:27:27Z")
The heap size dictates both the minimum (-Xms) and maximum (-Xmx) size the
Java process will take on startup. Your JVM process will allocate all 8GB
to itself if possible. What are the sizes of your caches (field/filter)?
They should be close to 0.
Cheers,
Ivan
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 12:45 AM, [forkurt@gmail.com](mailto:forkurt@gmail.com) wrote:
> Hello guys.
>
> I run ES on 3 nodes with 20 shards and 1 replica.
> Each node runs on 8 core cpu, 16GB memory server, and I set heap size 8GB
> to JVM option.
> I set -Dbootstrap.mlockall=true, -Des.index.cache.field.type=soft options.
> There is 350 millions docs whose size is 650GB total in ES.
> When I start entire nodes and after cluster's health become green stat,
> each node uses almost 6.5 - 7.9 GB even though there's no actual search or
> insert request.
> Is it normal? Should I use bigger memory server for this size of data?
> Please give me an advise.
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "elasticsearch" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).
> For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out).
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).
For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out).
---
### Author:  [@forkurt](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/forkurt)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/node-uses-too-much-memory-i-think/13385/3 "2013-08-30T03:11:34Z")
Thanks for reply.
When I said node used 6.5-7.9GB, it was on bigdesk's JVM chart.
The actual used heap size is now 7.1G and commited is 7.9 which is XMx size.
The thing I want to know is ES load all index information on memory, so
used heap size is so big even if there's little client's request.
If that's right, I think I should use larger memory for node server for
this amount of data. Do you have any idea about this?
Finally, I didin't set anything about cache size, which means ES user
defualt setting for that - 20% for filter cache. And for your question, how
can I check the actual caches(field/fillter)? Could you give me the way?
Jay
On Friday, August 30, 2013 6:27:27 AM UTC+9, Ivan Brusic wrote:
> The heap size dictates both the minimum (-Xms) and maximum (-Xmx) size the
> Java process will take on startup. Your JVM process will allocate all 8GB
> to itself if possible. What are the sizes of your caches (field/filter)?
> They should be close to 0.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ivan
>
> On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 12:45 AM, \<[for...@gmail.com](mailto:for...@gmail.com) \\> wrote:
>
> > Hello guys.
> >
> > I run ES on 3 nodes with 20 shards and 1 replica.
> > Each node runs on 8 core cpu, 16GB memory server, and I set heap size 8GB
> > to JVM option.
> > I set -Dbootstrap.mlockall=true, -Des.index.cache.field.type=soft options.
> > There is 350 millions docs whose size is 650GB total in ES.
> > When I start entire nodes and after cluster's health become green stat,
> > each node uses almost 6.5 - 7.9 GB even though there's no actual search or
> > insert request.
> > Is it normal? Should I use bigger memory server for this size of data?
> > Please give me an advise.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "elasticsearch" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> > email to [elasticsearc...@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearc...@googlegroups.com) \.
> > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out).
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).
For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out).
---
### Author:  [@jpountz](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jpountz)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2013, 7:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/node-uses-too-much-memory-i-think/13385/4 "2013-08-30T07:25:33Z")
Hi,
The fact that the JVM uses a lot of memory under very light load isn't
worrying, JVMs like memory and then tend to keep it instead of giving it
back to the system to be prepared for sudden increases of load. If requests
succeed in reasonable time, it probably mean there is no issue. In case of
issues, you should start looking at garbage collection activity: very
frequent collections, and memory usage remaining high after major
collections mean that the garbage collector can't keep up with the rate of
memory allocations given the memory he has and the JVM should be given more
memory.
The cluster nodes stats API can give you statistics about memory usage of
field data, see
[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/admin-cluster-nodes-stats/).
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 5:11 AM, [forkurt@gmail.com](mailto:forkurt@gmail.com) wrote:
> Thanks for reply.
>
> When I said node used 6.5-7.9GB, it was on bigdesk's JVM chart.
> The actual used heap size is now 7.1G and commited is 7.9 which is XMx
> size.
>
> The thing I want to know is ES load all index information on memory, so
> used heap size is so big even if there's little client's request.
> If that's right, I think I should use larger memory for node server for
> this amount of data. Do you have any idea about this?
>
> Finally, I didin't set anything about cache size, which means ES user
> defualt setting for that - 20% for filter cache. And for your question, how
> can I check the actual caches(field/fillter)? Could you give me the way?
>
> Jay
>
> On Friday, August 30, 2013 6:27:27 AM UTC+9, Ivan Brusic wrote:
>
> > The heap size dictates both the minimum (-Xms) and maximum (-Xmx) size
> > the Java process will take on startup. Your JVM process will allocate all
> > 8GB to itself if possible. What are the sizes of your caches
> > (field/filter)? They should be close to 0.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Ivan
> >
> > On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 12:45 AM, [for...@gmail.com](mailto:for...@gmail.com) wrote:
> >
> > > Hello guys.
> > >
> > > I run ES on 3 nodes with 20 shards and 1 replica.
> > > Each node runs on 8 core cpu, 16GB memory server, and I set heap size
> > > 8GB to JVM option.
> > > I set -Dbootstrap.mlockall=true,\*\* -Des.index.cache.field.type=\*\*soft
> > > options.
> > > There is 350 millions docs whose size is 650GB total in ES.
> > > When I start entire nodes and after cluster's health become green stat,
> > > each node uses almost 6.5 - 7.9 GB even though there's no actual search or
> > > insert request.
> > > Is it normal? Should I use bigger memory server for this size of data?
> > > Please give me an advise.
> > >
> > > Thanks.
> > >
> > > --
> > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> > > Groups "elasticsearch" group.
> > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> > > an email to elasticsearc...@\*\*[googlegroups.com](http://googlegroups.com).
> > >
> > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/\*\*groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_out)[https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out)
> > > .
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "elasticsearch" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> > email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).
> > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out).
--
Adrien Grand
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).
For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out).
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/node-uses-too-much-memory-i-think/13385/5 "2017-07-06T02:18:50Z")