# Shard - Instance Distribution

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-instance-distribution/66594>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 18, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-instance-distribution/66594 "2016-11-18T20:56:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sng](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@sng](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/sng)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-instance-distribution/66594/1 "2016-11-18T20:56:38Z")

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Hey Guys,

I'm semi-new to elastic search (I used it much more than configuring it)  
I noticed that my shards are distributed differently between my different nodes.

![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/2X/8/8ff062d886fd914fd7b3280959c495214de4be09.png)

I can tell that all shards on the left are on the same Instance. On the right the shards are evenly distributed between the two instances.

Two questions:

Does this mean that my node on the left is actually only running on one instance?  
Should I change that and how?

Thank you for your time!

Best,  
H

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-instance-distribution/66594/2 "2016-11-19T03:04:45Z")

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> [@sng](#):
>
> Does this mean that my node on the left is actually only running on one instance?

To be honest, this doesn't make any sense, but given your qualifying statement it's completely ok 🙂

Basically a primary and a replica shard do the the same amount of work, so there is no real concern to have different allocation patters like what you see.

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**Author:** ![sng](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@sng](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/sng)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 10:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-instance-distribution/66594/3 "2016-11-19T22:27:56Z")

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Ok great! Thank you!!

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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:** [December 17, 2016, 10:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-instance-distribution/66594/4 "2016-12-17T22:28:22Z")

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Closed on December 17, 2016, 10:28pm UTC

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