# Should I have one Index or Multiple Indexes

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-have-one-index-or-multiple-indexes/296312>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 4, 2022, 2:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-have-one-index-or-multiple-indexes/296312 "2022-02-04T14:32:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Pawan\_Misra](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/pawan_misra/32/101212_2.png) [@Pawan\_Misra](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Pawan_Misra)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2022, 2:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-have-one-index-or-multiple-indexes/296312/1 "2022-02-04T14:32:16Z")

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We have a scenario where we have data from multiple clients.  
some figures to note:  
No of clients - 100  
Data/client - 10GB (avg)

With the above data, what should be our Indexing strategy?

We know that we will need to increase the shard count if we go with 1 index solution as data grows, which is not a straightforward process and needs re-indexing. is this reason enough to ignore the single index strategy?

But as we mentioned data per client is going to be ~10GB only, which is a bit low from the recommended shard size(30GB), so can we still go with a multiple index(index/client) strategy?

Prons/ Cons we are aware of:

1. Shard level scaling would be a challenge on a single index(not sure how much) whereas we will have pre-calculated shards for each index in a multi-indexing strategy.
2. Searching will be impacted as distribution will happen across all the primary shards and huge data in a single index whereas Searching will be optimized in multiple indexing.

Thanks

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**Author:** ![ylasri](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ylasri/32/86120_2.png) [@ylasri](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ylasri)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2022, 3:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-have-one-index-or-multiple-indexes/296312/2 "2022-02-04T15:24:45Z")

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Going with 1 index is a bad idea, you average data is 1TB  
Go with 1 index par client, you should be at 100 indexes  
Add 1 replicas for each index for HA, you finish by having 200 shards for 100 indexes (Average of 40GB per index)

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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:** [February 6, 2022, 9:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-have-one-index-or-multiple-indexes/296312/3 "2022-02-06T21:46:29Z")

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Welcome to our community! 😃

If you use [ILM](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/index-lifecycle-management.html) with this, you'll be able to manage things a little easier.

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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:** [March 6, 2022, 9:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-have-one-index-or-multiple-indexes/296312/4 "2022-03-06T21:46:34Z")

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