# Should I store ES GC logs in my stack? And is there a way to condense them?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-store-es-gc-logs-in-my-stack-and-is-there-a-way-to-condense-them/260887>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Tags:** elastic-stack-monitoring, filebeat\
**Created:** [January 12, 2021, 6:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-store-es-gc-logs-in-my-stack-and-is-there-a-way-to-condense-them/260887 "2021-01-12T18:41:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jerrac](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jerrac/32/52980_2.png) [@jerrac](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jerrac)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 6:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-store-es-gc-logs-in-my-stack-and-is-there-a-way-to-condense-them/260887/1 "2021-01-12T18:41:04Z")

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While poking around looking for ways to save space, I noticed that Elasticsearch .gc logs were 80% of my Filebeat logs.

I turned them off yesterday afternoon. This morning I did a comparison of how many hits I got yesterday, vs. today.

```auto
1/11 00:00-09:00 3,019,557 hits
1/12 00:00-09:00 462,853 hits

```

That's just a bit of a difference....

So, how important is it to keep GC logs in my stack? Can I just rely on the log files, then import them if I ever really need the information?

Also, I noticed that many log entries had an identifier like: `GC(620850)`. Couldn't that be used to concatenate some of the logs together and use up a bit less space? I was using the Filebeat Elasticsearch module, so I'm kinda surprised that isn't how it is done...

Thanks in advance!

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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:** [January 12, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-store-es-gc-logs-in-my-stack-and-is-there-a-way-to-condense-them/260887/2 "2021-01-12T20:48:24Z")

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You could just ignore them, yes. It will log some of that in the normal Elasticsearch logs as INFO, or WARN if it becomes too big.

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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:** [February 9, 2021, 10:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/should-i-store-es-gc-logs-in-my-stack-and-is-there-a-way-to-condense-them/260887/3 "2021-02-09T22:48:31Z")

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