# Performance impact of deleting large index in Elasticsearch

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/performance-impact-of-deleting-large-index-in-elasticsearch/219503>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** ilm-index-lifecycle-management\
**Created:** [February 16, 2020, 5:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/performance-impact-of-deleting-large-index-in-elasticsearch/219503 "2020-02-16T05:50:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![the123saurav](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/the123saurav/32/47551_2.png) [@the123saurav](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/the123saurav)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2020, 5:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/performance-impact-of-deleting-large-index-in-elasticsearch/219503/1 "2020-02-16T05:50:27Z")

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We are using Elasticsearch 6.0 with 2 indices both of size 200gb(primary shards store) and 3 primary shards and 2 replicas. We want to delete one index fully. The cluster has 3 dedicated master nodes(1core, 4gb) and 5 data nodes( 8core, 32gb). Is it safe to delete the whole index with indexing traffic on other index still on? How long it might take and during that time will we see any degradation?  
What will be the impact on in-memory data structure? Can this trigger old generation GC?

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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:** [February 16, 2020, 9:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/performance-impact-of-deleting-large-index-in-elasticsearch/219503/2 "2020-02-16T09:59:10Z")

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Deleting an entire index is quite a lightweight operation. I don't think I've heard of any cases where it had an impact on other cluster activity.

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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:** [March 15, 2020, 9:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/performance-impact-of-deleting-large-index-in-elasticsearch/219503/3 "2020-03-15T09:59:15Z")

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