# Shards taking ages to initialize

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shards-taking-ages-to-initialize/101335>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [September 21, 2017, 1:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shards-taking-ages-to-initialize/101335 "2017-09-21T13:05:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Abhilash\_Bolla](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/abhilash_bolla/32/26840_2.png) [@Abhilash\_Bolla](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Abhilash_Bolla)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 1:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shards-taking-ages-to-initialize/101335/1 "2017-09-21T13:05:59Z")

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I have a synonyms file of around 1GB. The index has around 25 million documents. When the index is closed and then opened again, it takes almost 3 hours for the shards both primary and replicas to be allocated.

Number of primary shards: 7  
Number of replica shards: 14

Average shard size: 20GB.

Output of hot\_threads is as given [https://pastebin.com/ipTVjd8A](https://pastebin.com/ipTVjd8A)

Thanks.

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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:** [September 21, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shards-taking-ages-to-initialize/101335/2 "2017-09-21T21:16:02Z")

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What version are you on?

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**Author:** ![Abhilash\_Bolla](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/abhilash_bolla/32/26840_2.png) [@Abhilash\_Bolla](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Abhilash_Bolla)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 4:13am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shards-taking-ages-to-initialize/101335/3 "2017-09-22T04:13:59Z")

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@warkolm Elasticsearch version: 2.4.5

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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:** [October 20, 2017, 4:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/shards-taking-ages-to-initialize/101335/4 "2017-10-20T04:14:01Z")

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