# Why should I have to split index

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-should-i-have-to-split-index/271824>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 30, 2021, 6:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-should-i-have-to-split-index/271824 "2021-04-30T18:25:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![surya3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@surya3](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/surya3)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 6:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-should-i-have-to-split-index/271824/1 "2021-04-30T18:25:02Z")

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Hi team  
I am newbie to the elastic search. While I am looking at static index settings I found `index.number_of_routing_shards` there mentioned that it is used to split an index. After seeing this sentence I got some questions in my mind.

1. Why should I split an index?  
2.Can some explain real-time scenarios.  
3.How this parameter helps in splitting the index.

The example mentioned in the documentation is not clear to me.  
It may be a silly question but as I am new to this and want to learn more, found interesting want to know the answer. I hope people can explain me with good example.

Thanks,  
Surya.

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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:** [May 2, 2021, 9:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-should-i-have-to-split-index/271824/2 "2021-05-02T21:54:10Z")

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Welcome to our community! 😃

1. You may not need to. But if you do it'd be to increase write performance, or to split an index that has grown too large
2. I'm not sure what you mean by real time here sorry
3. Per [the docs](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.12/indices-split-index.html#split-index-api-desc), so in the example that index can be split up to 30 shards;

> The number of times the index can be split (and the number of shards that each original shard can be split into) is determined by the `index.number_of_routing_shards` setting.

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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:** [May 30, 2021, 9:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-should-i-have-to-split-index/271824/3 "2021-05-30T21:54:53Z")

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