# Reduce number of shard

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reduce-number-of-shard/358791>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [May 6, 2024, 7:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reduce-number-of-shard/358791 "2024-05-06T07:57:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Frances\_Chu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/frances_chu/32/127298_2.png) [@Frances\_Chu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Frances_Chu)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2024, 7:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reduce-number-of-shard/358791/1 "2024-05-06T07:57:18Z")

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My Elasticsearch received three logs:  
Log\_A  
Log\_B  
Log\_C

To facilitate index lifecycle management (iLM), I updated the index names as follows:  
Log\_A\_YYYYMMDD  
Log\_B\_YYYYMMDD  
Log\_C\_YYYYMMDD

Consequently, a new index is created every day.

Now, my concern is that as the number of indices grows, so does the number of shards (one primary shard and one replica).

How can I effectively manage the increasing number of shards

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**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2024, 8:29am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reduce-number-of-shard/358791/2 "2024-05-06T08:29:36Z")

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What is the size of each shard? If not 50gb each then you are probably wasting a lot of resources. Increasing the max number of shards on the cluster with the same number of nodes is not really an option unless you want to take some risks...

The other option is to add more nodes as the number of shards grows.

But to me the best thing to use is [Data streams | Elasticsearch Guide [8.13] | Elastic](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/data-streams.html).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Frances\_Chu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/frances_chu/32/127298_2.png) [@Frances\_Chu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Frances_Chu)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2024, 9:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reduce-number-of-shard/358791/3 "2024-05-06T09:51:27Z")

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Thanks for the reply.  
Would it be a good idea to create a index every 30days instead of daily

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2024, 10:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reduce-number-of-shard/358791/4 "2024-05-06T10:24:43Z")

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It depends of the estimated size of a shard for 30 days. That's what datastreams are solving. They just rollover automatically for you basically.