# Number of shards on a ElasticSearch node

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/number-of-shards-on-a-elasticsearch-node/193648
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [August 3, 2019, 6:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/number-of-shards-on-a-elasticsearch-node/193648 "2019-08-03T18:24:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Jitendra\_Kumhar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jitendra_kumhar/32/48640_2.png) [@Jitendra\_Kumhar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jitendra_Kumhar)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2019, 6:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/number-of-shards-on-a-elasticsearch-node/193648/1 "2019-08-03T18:24:50Z")

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![11%20PM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/d/6/d603a0d1e95a6db700004c38a4f142fba8784fe9.png)  
I have 4 data nodes.And for a given index I had set number of shards=4  
What does these numbers in blue boxes means.Why it sums to more than 4?

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### Author: ![rugenl](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rugenl/32/12887_2.png) [@rugenl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rugenl)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2019, 7:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/number-of-shards-on-a-elasticsearch-node/193648/2 "2019-08-03T19:49:12Z")

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4 shards, consisting of shard-0, shard-1, shard-2 and shard-3.

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### Author: ![Jitendra\_Kumhar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jitendra_kumhar/32/48640_2.png) [@Jitendra\_Kumhar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jitendra_Kumhar)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 9:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/number-of-shards-on-a-elasticsearch-node/193648/3 "2019-08-04T09:27:26Z")

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Ohh Thank you.  
Does having number of shards 4 or 8 make any difference when number is nodes is four.  
My index size is 470 GB. For my logging use case there are less number of query and more ingestion.

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### Author: ![rugenl](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rugenl/32/12887_2.png) [@rugenl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rugenl)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 11:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/number-of-shards-on-a-elasticsearch-node/193648/4 "2019-08-04T11:42:15Z")

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How much ingest daily? Will it forever be one index, daily indices or ILM for rollover? 470G / 4 sounds big for shard size, the recommendation seems to be 50G.

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### Author: ![Jitendra\_Kumhar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jitendra_kumhar/32/48640_2.png) [@Jitendra\_Kumhar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jitendra_Kumhar)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 11:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/number-of-shards-on-a-elasticsearch-node/193648/5 "2019-08-04T11:59:49Z")

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Daily ingest of 470 GB.  
But making it to more than 4 how will it change because finally some of them will be on same node .

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### Author: ![rugenl](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rugenl/32/12887_2.png) [@rugenl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rugenl)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/number-of-shards-on-a-elasticsearch-node/193648/6 "2019-08-04T19:39:06Z")

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Yes, it will allocate more than one shard per node. Your node legend would just look have 2 shard numbers after each node, node-data1: 0 3, node-data2: 1 7, etc.

I don't know what the performance impact it would have in your environment. 4 or 8, really the same amount of data per node, just organized differently. If you're not replicating, recovery time isn't a concern (bigger shards take longer to recover).

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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: [September 1, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/number-of-shards-on-a-elasticsearch-node/193648/7 "2019-09-01T19:39:08Z")

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