# Time Series Index **URL:** \ **Category:** Logstash\ **Created:** [August 16, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/time-series-index/195541 "2019-08-16T17:59:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mhare](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mhare/32/52213_2.png) [@mhare](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mhare)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/time-series-index/195541/1 "2019-08-16T17:59:35Z")
Using ELK 7.3 on Ubuntu 18.04 I am gathering memory and cpu data every 5 min from several devices under test, looking for memory leaks in the firmware. This is written to disk as a csv file. Since my visualizers are all using the TSVB visualizer, I read a little about the Time Series index. The index I had been using was just 'memleak' and it appeared to be working just fine. But, this is a time series, so I changed the index to 'memleak-%{+YYYY.MM.dd}' per an example I found online. So, my question is, what is the benefit from using a time series index over just a static text index? ---
**Author:** ![Badger](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/badger/32/25190_2.png) [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/time-series-index/195541/2 "2019-08-16T18:46:53Z")
It makes deleting old data simpler. ---
**Author:** ![mhare](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mhare/32/52213_2.png) [@mhare](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mhare)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 8:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/time-series-index/195541/3 "2019-08-16T20:13:06Z")
because if I delete the csv files with a particular @timestamp, then the associated index will be removed also? ---
**Author:** ![Badger](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/badger/32/25190_2.png) [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/time-series-index/195541/4 "2019-08-16T20:24:35Z")
No. Suppose you are ingesting logs from a server and you only want to keep 60 days worth of logs. If you have daily indexes then you can just delete the oldest index each day. If you have a single index you would have to use a query to delete old data, which is far more expensive that just dropping one index. ---
**Author:** ![mhare](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mhare/32/52213_2.png) [@mhare](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mhare)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 8:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/time-series-index/195541/5 "2019-08-16T20:31:25Z")
So, I need to read more about Index lifecycle policies? ---
**Author:** ![Badger](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/badger/32/25190_2.png) [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 8:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/time-series-index/195541/6 "2019-08-16T20:42:46Z")
That should help. ---
**Author:** ![mhare](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mhare/32/52213_2.png) [@mhare](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mhare)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 9:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/time-series-index/195541/7 "2019-08-16T21:03:41Z")
Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 9:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/time-series-index/195541/8 "2019-09-13T21:03:49Z")
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