# Removing original index after split
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/removing-original-index-after-split/296073
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [February 2, 2022, 2:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/removing-original-index-after-split/296073 "2022-02-02T14:49:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@kalikasan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kalikasan)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2022, 2:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/removing-original-index-after-split/296073/1 "2022-02-02T14:49:40Z")
Hi,
I've got a single shard index of 75GB taking 40% of my physical disk space (according to `df`) which I needed to split into two shards. After the split, the disk space taken by the new index is around the double of that (175GB according to Kibana/Index Management) and slowly going down (which is expected AFAIU). Both indexes now take only 43% of my disk space (according to `df`) and slowly going up: this also seems to be expected since, IIUC, the hard links created during the split are progressively being replaced by copied data. Please, correct me if I am wrong.
My question is: when is it safe to remove the original index from my cluster? I expect that I have to wait for the whole splitting process to be done. Is there a command that I could use to monitor the disk space operations that are taking place? I've tried to monitor using `GET _cat/recovery?v` that returns the following:
```auto
index shard time type stage source_host source_node target_host target_node repository snapshot files files_recovered files_percent files_total bytes bytes_recovered bytes_percent bytes_total translog_ops translog_ops_recovered translog_ops_percent
original_index 0 48.8s existing_store done n/a n/a 172.18.0.2 es-primary n/a n/a 0 0 100.0% 356 0 0 100.0% 77571827169 0 0 100.0%
new_index 0 2.6m local_shards done n/a n/a 172.18.0.2 es-primary n/a n/a 0 0 100.0% 355 0 0 100.0% 77571822082 0 0 100.0%
new_index 1 2.6m local_shards done n/a n/a 172.18.0.2 es-primary n/a n/a 0 0 100.0% 355 0 0 100.0% 77571822082 0 0 100.0%
```
As far as I understand, there's no recovery to be done or that would be in progress, unless I am looking at wrong places. Could someone guide me toward the right monitoring process and find the right time to delete original\_index like I am five?
Thanks a lot!
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2022, 11:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/removing-original-index-after-split/296073/2 "2022-02-02T23:11:57Z")
Welcome to our community! 😃
> [@kalikasan](#):
>
> My question is: when is it safe to remove the original index from my cluster?
Once the split process has been completed you can delete it. You should still see the process in `_cat/tasks?v` if it's running.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2022, 11:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/removing-original-index-after-split/296073/3 "2022-03-02T23:11:59Z")
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