Max shards per node
The configured maximum shards per node exceeds the recommended default of 1000. Raising this limit beyond the default allows more shards to accumulate per node, which increases memory overhead for shard metadata and slows searches that fan out across many shards.
For a complete list of insights, refer to AutoOps insights.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Component | Elasticsearch |
| Severity | Medium |
| Scope | Cluster |
| Domains | configuration, shard-allocation, stability |
The following is an example of what you might see when this insight is triggered. Real insights use live data and links from your deployment or cluster.
cluster.max_shards_per_node is set to 2000, which is above the recommended default of 1000.
AutoOps shows different recommendations depending on how their conditions match your deployment or cluster.
Lower the maximum shards per node to the recommended value
Condition: Always shown for this insight.
Set cluster.max_shards_per_node to 1000 to bring the cluster back within the recommended shard budget. Review index and shard design first so future growth stays within the limit, and prefer right-sizing indices and adding nodes over raising this setting.
PUT _cluster/settings?pretty
{
"persistent": {
"cluster.max_shards_per_node": "1000"
}
}
Requires the manage cluster privilege. Requires Elasticsearch 8.0.0 or later. This action changes cluster or index configuration.
Impact: many shards degrades indexing and search performance and can destabilize the cluster. Elasticsearch allows you to set a limit on the number of shards per node. While you can increase this limit, it is not recommended to do so, since having many shards on the node slows down search operations. This is because the responses need to be collated across many shards. Furthermore, Elasticsearch must maintain data about the mappings and the shard state in memory, so having many shards unnecessarily ties up cluster resources, leaving less available for indexing and search.