# Question on Replica
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-replica/8638
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [August 5, 2012, 11:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-replica/8638 "2012-08-05T11:35:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Rahul\_Sharma](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Rahul_Sharma)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 11:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-replica/8638/1 "2012-08-05T11:35:35Z")
Hi,
I have a Question on replica settings. Would appreciate your help on this.
1. I was having one node of ES where initially; it was with default setup
which is 5 shards and 1 replica.
2. Then I wanted to increase the node to 2.
3. Before adding another node I stopped the running node. Edited the
elasticsearch.yml and changed the replica number to 0.
4. Then I started both the nodes. (Both the nodes has same elasticsearch
config parameters especially on number of shards and replica)
5. Now I expect the shards to get distributed among both the nodes.
But the second node replicated entire indices and shards and became more
like a replica.
Is there anything I am doing wrong?
Thanks
Rahul
---
### Author:  [@Clinton\_Gormley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Clinton_Gormley)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 11:43am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-replica/8638/2 "2012-08-05T11:43:05Z")
> 1. Before adding another node I stopped the running node. Edited the
> elasticsearch.yml and changed the replica number to 0.
The config just acts as a template for new indices. Changing the config
doesn't affect any indices that already exist.
To do that, you should use the index settings API.
> **[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale](https://www.elastic.co)**
>
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clint
---
### Author:  [@Rahul\_Sharma](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Rahul_Sharma)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 12:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-replica/8638/3 "2012-08-05T12:03:22Z")
That was it!!
Thanks a lot Clint. Appreciate your quick response.
On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Clinton Gormley [clint@traveljury.com](mailto:clint@traveljury.com)wrote:
> > 1. Before adding another node I stopped the running node. Edited the
> > elasticsearch.yml and changed the replica number to 0.
>
> The config just acts as a template for new indices. Changing the config
> doesn't affect any indices that already exist.
>
> To do that, you should use the index settings API.
>
> [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/admin-indices-update-settings.html)
>
> clint
---
### Author:  [@Rahul\_Sharma](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Rahul_Sharma)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 12:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-replica/8638/4 "2012-08-05T12:20:29Z")
What I notice is that while re-balancing the nodes are re balancing the
indices not the shards within it?
I was expecting the shards to get rebalanced.
Now Index 1 has all the shards in Node 1, whereas Index 2 has all the 5
shards in Node 2.
Is this an expected behavior?
Thanks
Rahul
On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Rahul Sharma
[rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com](mailto:rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com)wrote:
> That was it!!
> Thanks a lot Clint. Appreciate your quick response.
>
> On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Clinton Gormley [clint@traveljury.com](mailto:clint@traveljury.com)wrote:
>
> > > 1. Before adding another node I stopped the running node. Edited the
> > > elasticsearch.yml and changed the replica number to 0.
> >
> > The config just acts as a template for new indices. Changing the config
> > doesn't affect any indices that already exist.
> >
> > To do that, you should use the index settings API.
> >
> > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/admin-indices-update-settings.html)
> >
> > clint
---
### Author:  [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-replica/8638/5 "2012-08-07T21:56:55Z")
Shards are being evened out, index is not really taken into account (and thats the problem you are running into). Thats how ES works now, and you can work a bit around it by shards\_per\_node setting. It will be improved in the very near future.
On Aug 5, 2012, at 2:20 PM, Rahul Sharma [rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com](mailto:rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com) wrote:
> What I notice is that while re-balancing the nodes are re balancing the indices not the shards within it?
> I was expecting the shards to get rebalanced.
> Now Index 1 has all the shards in Node 1, whereas Index 2 has all the 5 shards in Node 2.
>
> Is this an expected behavior?
>
> Thanks
> Rahul
>
> On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Rahul Sharma [rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com](mailto:rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com) wrote:
> That was it!!
> Thanks a lot Clint. Appreciate your quick response.
>
> On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Clinton Gormley [clint@traveljury.com](mailto:clint@traveljury.com) wrote:
>
> > 1. Before adding another node I stopped the running node. Edited the
> > elasticsearch.yml and changed the replica number to 0.
>
> The config just acts as a template for new indices. Changing the config
> doesn't affect any indices that already exist.
>
> To do that, you should use the index settings API.
> [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/admin-indices-update-settings.html)
>
> clint
---
### Author:  [@Rahul\_Sharma](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Rahul_Sharma)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 10:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-replica/8638/6 "2012-08-07T22:13:03Z")
Aah I see.
Just FYI, Indexes created afterwards got distributed correctly.
On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 3:26 AM, Shay Banon [kimchy@gmail.com](mailto:kimchy@gmail.com) wrote:
> Shards are being evened out, index is not really taken into account (and
> thats the problem you are running into). Thats how ES works now, and you
> can work a bit around it by shards\_per\_node setting. It will be improved in
> the very near future.
>
> On Aug 5, 2012, at 2:20 PM, Rahul Sharma [rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com](mailto:rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com)
> wrote:
>
> What I notice is that while re-balancing the nodes are re balancing the
> indices not the shards within it?
> I was expecting the shards to get rebalanced.
> Now Index 1 has all the shards in Node 1, whereas Index 2 has all the 5
> shards in Node 2.
>
> Is this an expected behavior?
>
> Thanks
> Rahul
>
> On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Rahul Sharma \<[rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com](mailto:rahul.sharma.coder@gmail.com)
>
> > wrote:
>
> > That was it!!
> > Thanks a lot Clint. Appreciate your quick response.
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Clinton Gormley [clint@traveljury.com](mailto:clint@traveljury.com)wrote:
> >
> > > > 1. Before adding another node I stopped the running node. Edited the
> > > > elasticsearch.yml and changed the replica number to 0.
> > >
> > > The config just acts as a template for new indices. Changing the config
> > > doesn't affect any indices that already exist.
> > >
> > > To do that, you should use the index settings API.
> > >
> > > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/admin-indices-update-settings.html)
> > >
> > > clint
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 3:17am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-replica/8638/7 "2017-07-06T03:17:24Z")