# Shard Rebalancing Delay
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-rebalancing-delay/61533
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [September 26, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-rebalancing-delay/61533 "2016-09-26T19:31:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@seth.yes](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/seth.yes)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-rebalancing-delay/61533/1 "2016-09-26T19:31:02Z")
I have a 5 node cluster running ES 2.4.0. supporting both development and staging environments. It is common for these nodes to be restarted, especially due to developmental changes etc.. I have one client node, two data-only nodes and two master-eligible nodes.
My problem is that when I restart even the ES service on a node, my cluster immediately freaks out and reallocates all the shards that were assigned to that node, even if the service was away for less than a minute. It then takes at least ten minutes for all the shards to recover and my cluster to return to a 'Green' status.
I've been looking at the documentation and thought I saw a delay you could put into ES but can't find it anymore. Does anyone know what modification I need to make in order for my ES cluster to not reallocate shards from a node unless the node has been down for (e.g. 5 minutes)?
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### Author:  [@kstaken](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kstaken)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-rebalancing-delay/61533/2 "2016-09-26T20:43:14Z")
I remembered seeing that too and had to go into my notes to find it as I couldn't see it in the docs either. Once you know what to look for it's easy to find.
index.unassigned.node\_left.delayed\_timeout
[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/delayed-allocation.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/delayed-allocation.html)
Kimbro
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### Author:  [@seth.yes](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/seth.yes)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2016, 11:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-rebalancing-delay/61533/3 "2016-09-26T23:38:30Z")
Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a bunch Kimbro!
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2017, 10:17pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shard-rebalancing-delay/61533/4 "2017-07-05T22:17:07Z")