Re: Query regarding SSTable timestamps and counts
my two cents ... i know this thread is a bit old, but the fact that odd-sized SSTABLEs (usually large ones) will hang around for a while can be very troublesome on disk space and planning. our data is temporal in cassandra, being deleted constantly. we have seen space usage in the 1+ TB range when actually there is less than 100gb of usable data. this is because the tombstoned data will not be deleted until it is compacted with its tombstone. this scenario doesn't really follow the sizing plan of give yourself 2x disk space due to compaction. our fix was to use leveled compaction which maintains very low overhead and removes tombstoned data fairly quickly. this is at the cost of disk I/O, but we are fine with the I/O. On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 5:18 PM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: upgradetables re-writes every sstable to have the same contents in the newest format. Agree. In the world of compaction, and excluding upgrades, have older sstables is expected. Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 21/11/2012, at 11:45 AM, Edward Capriolo edlinuxg...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 5:23 PM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps It is perfectly OK to have very old SSTables. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. upgradetables re-writes every sstable to have the same contents in the newest format. Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 19/11/2012, at 4:57 PM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Aaron, Thanks a lot for the reply. Looks like the documentation is confusing. Here is the link I am referring to: http://www.datastax.com/docs/1.1/operations/tuning#tuning-compaction It does not disable compaction. As per the above url, After running a major compaction, automatic minor compactions are no longer triggered, frequently requiring you to manually run major compactions on a routine basis. ( Just before the heading Tuning Column Family compression in the above link) With respect to the replies below : it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. This is for the minor compaction and major compaction should theoretically result in one large file irrespective of the number of data files initially? This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. Well my worry has been because of the large amount of node movements we have done in the ring. We started off with 6 nodes and increased the capacity to 12 with disproportionate increases every time which resulted in a lot of clean of data folders except system, run repair and then a cleanup with an aborted attempt in between. There were some data.db files older by more than 2 weeks and were not modified since then. My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps (assuming there is a good amount of writes to the table continuously) I did not have a for sure way of telling if everything is alright with the compaction looking at the last modified timestamps of all the data.db files. What are the compaction issues you are having ? Your replies confirm that the timestamps should not be an issue to worry about. So I guess I should not be calling them as issues any more. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. Regards, Ananth On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 6:54 AM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: As per datastax documentation, a manual compaction forces the admin to start compaction manually and disables the automated compaction (atleast for major compactions but not minor compactions ) It does not disable compaction. it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. 1. Does a nodetool stop compaction also force the admin to manually run major compaction ( I.e. disable automated major compactions ? ) No. Stop just stops the current compaction. Nothing is disabled. 2. Can a node restart reset the automated major compaction if a node gets into a manual mode compaction for whatever reason ? Major compaction is not automatic. It is the manual nodetool compact command. Automatic (minor) compaction is controlled by min_compaction_threshold and max_compaction_threshold (for the default compaction
Re: Query regarding SSTable timestamps and counts
My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps It is perfectly OK to have very old SSTables. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. upgradetables re-writes every sstable to have the same contents in the newest format. Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 19/11/2012, at 4:57 PM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Aaron, Thanks a lot for the reply. Looks like the documentation is confusing. Here is the link I am referring to: http://www.datastax.com/docs/1.1/operations/tuning#tuning-compaction It does not disable compaction. As per the above url, After running a major compaction, automatic minor compactions are no longer triggered, frequently requiring you to manually run major compactions on a routine basis. ( Just before the heading Tuning Column Family compression in the above link) With respect to the replies below : it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. This is for the minor compaction and major compaction should theoretically result in one large file irrespective of the number of data files initially? This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. Well my worry has been because of the large amount of node movements we have done in the ring. We started off with 6 nodes and increased the capacity to 12 with disproportionate increases every time which resulted in a lot of clean of data folders except system, run repair and then a cleanup with an aborted attempt in between. There were some data.db files older by more than 2 weeks and were not modified since then. My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps (assuming there is a good amount of writes to the table continuously) I did not have a for sure way of telling if everything is alright with the compaction looking at the last modified timestamps of all the data.db files. What are the compaction issues you are having ? Your replies confirm that the timestamps should not be an issue to worry about. So I guess I should not be calling them as issues any more. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. Regards, Ananth On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 6:54 AM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: As per datastax documentation, a manual compaction forces the admin to start compaction manually and disables the automated compaction (atleast for major compactions but not minor compactions ) It does not disable compaction. it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. 1. Does a nodetool stop compaction also force the admin to manually run major compaction ( I.e. disable automated major compactions ? ) No. Stop just stops the current compaction. Nothing is disabled. 2. Can a node restart reset the automated major compaction if a node gets into a manual mode compaction for whatever reason ? Major compaction is not automatic. It is the manual nodetool compact command. Automatic (minor) compaction is controlled by min_compaction_threshold and max_compaction_threshold (for the default compaction strategy). 3. What is the ideal number of SSTables for a table in a keyspace ( I mean are there any indicators as to whether my compaction is alright or not ? ) This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. For example, I have seen SSTables on the disk more than 10 days old wherein there were other SSTables belonging to the same table but much younger than the older SSTables ( No problems. 4. Does a upgradesstables fix any compaction issues ? What are the compaction issues you are having ? Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 18/11/2012, at 1:18 AM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: We have a cluster running cassandra 1.1.4. On this cluster, 1. We had to move the nodes around a bit when we were adding new nodes (there was quite a good amount of node movement ) 2. We had to stop compactions during some of the days to save some disk space on some of the nodes when they were running very very low on disk spaces. (via nodetool stop COMPACTION) As per datastax documentation,
Re: Query regarding SSTable timestamps and counts
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 5:23 PM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps It is perfectly OK to have very old SSTables. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. upgradetables re-writes every sstable to have the same contents in the newest format. Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 19/11/2012, at 4:57 PM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Aaron, Thanks a lot for the reply. Looks like the documentation is confusing. Here is the link I am referring to: http://www.datastax.com/docs/1.1/operations/tuning#tuning-compaction It does not disable compaction. As per the above url, After running a major compaction, automatic minor compactions are no longer triggered, frequently requiring you to manually run major compactions on a routine basis. ( Just before the heading Tuning Column Family compression in the above link) With respect to the replies below : it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. This is for the minor compaction and major compaction should theoretically result in one large file irrespective of the number of data files initially? This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. Well my worry has been because of the large amount of node movements we have done in the ring. We started off with 6 nodes and increased the capacity to 12 with disproportionate increases every time which resulted in a lot of clean of data folders except system, run repair and then a cleanup with an aborted attempt in between. There were some data.db files older by more than 2 weeks and were not modified since then. My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps (assuming there is a good amount of writes to the table continuously) I did not have a for sure way of telling if everything is alright with the compaction looking at the last modified timestamps of all the data.db files. What are the compaction issues you are having ? Your replies confirm that the timestamps should not be an issue to worry about. So I guess I should not be calling them as issues any more. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. Regards, Ananth On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 6:54 AM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: As per datastax documentation, a manual compaction forces the admin to start compaction manually and disables the automated compaction (atleast for major compactions but not minor compactions ) It does not disable compaction. it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. 1. Does a nodetool stop compaction also force the admin to manually run major compaction ( I.e. disable automated major compactions ? ) No. Stop just stops the current compaction. Nothing is disabled. 2. Can a node restart reset the automated major compaction if a node gets into a manual mode compaction for whatever reason ? Major compaction is not automatic. It is the manual nodetool compact command. Automatic (minor) compaction is controlled by min_compaction_threshold and max_compaction_threshold (for the default compaction strategy). 3. What is the ideal number of SSTables for a table in a keyspace ( I mean are there any indicators as to whether my compaction is alright or not ? ) This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. For example, I have seen SSTables on the disk more than 10 days old wherein there were other SSTables belonging to the same table but much younger than the older SSTables ( No problems. 4. Does a upgradesstables fix any compaction issues ? What are the compaction issues you are having ? Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 18/11/2012, at 1:18 AM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: We have a cluster running cassandra 1.1.4. On this cluster, 1. We had to move the nodes around a bit when we were adding new nodes (there was quite a good amount of node movement ) 2. We had to stop compactions during some of the days to save some disk space on some of the nodes when they were running very very low on disk spaces. (via nodetool stop COMPACTION) As per datastax documentation, a manual
Re: Query regarding SSTable timestamps and counts
Thanks a lot Aaron and Edward. The mail thread clarifies some things for me. For letting others know on this thread, running an upgradesstables did decrease our bloom filter false positive ratios a lot. ( upgradesstables was run not to upgrade from a casasndra version to a higher cassandra version but because of all the node movement we had done to upgrade our cluster in a staggered way with aborted attempts in between and I understand that upgradesstables was not necessarily required for the high bloom filter false positives rates we were seeing ) Regards, Ananth On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 9:45 AM, Edward Capriolo edlinuxg...@gmail.comwrote: On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 5:23 PM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps It is perfectly OK to have very old SSTables. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. upgradetables re-writes every sstable to have the same contents in the newest format. Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 19/11/2012, at 4:57 PM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Aaron, Thanks a lot for the reply. Looks like the documentation is confusing. Here is the link I am referring to: http://www.datastax.com/docs/1.1/operations/tuning#tuning-compaction It does not disable compaction. As per the above url, After running a major compaction, automatic minor compactions are no longer triggered, frequently requiring you to manually run major compactions on a routine basis. ( Just before the heading Tuning Column Family compression in the above link) With respect to the replies below : it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. This is for the minor compaction and major compaction should theoretically result in one large file irrespective of the number of data files initially? This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. Well my worry has been because of the large amount of node movements we have done in the ring. We started off with 6 nodes and increased the capacity to 12 with disproportionate increases every time which resulted in a lot of clean of data folders except system, run repair and then a cleanup with an aborted attempt in between. There were some data.db files older by more than 2 weeks and were not modified since then. My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps (assuming there is a good amount of writes to the table continuously) I did not have a for sure way of telling if everything is alright with the compaction looking at the last modified timestamps of all the data.db files. What are the compaction issues you are having ? Your replies confirm that the timestamps should not be an issue to worry about. So I guess I should not be calling them as issues any more. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. Regards, Ananth On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 6:54 AM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: As per datastax documentation, a manual compaction forces the admin to start compaction manually and disables the automated compaction (atleast for major compactions but not minor compactions ) It does not disable compaction. it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. 1. Does a nodetool stop compaction also force the admin to manually run major compaction ( I.e. disable automated major compactions ? ) No. Stop just stops the current compaction. Nothing is disabled. 2. Can a node restart reset the automated major compaction if a node gets into a manual mode compaction for whatever reason ? Major compaction is not automatic. It is the manual nodetool compact command. Automatic (minor) compaction is controlled by min_compaction_threshold and max_compaction_threshold (for the default compaction strategy). 3. What is the ideal number of SSTables for a table in a keyspace ( I mean are there any indicators as to whether my compaction is alright or not ? ) This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. For example, I have seen SSTables on the disk more than 10 days old wherein there were other SSTables belonging to the same table but much
Re: Query regarding SSTable timestamps and counts
upgradetables re-writes every sstable to have the same contents in the newest format. Agree. In the world of compaction, and excluding upgrades, have older sstables is expected. Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 21/11/2012, at 11:45 AM, Edward Capriolo edlinuxg...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 5:23 PM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps It is perfectly OK to have very old SSTables. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. upgradetables re-writes every sstable to have the same contents in the newest format. Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 19/11/2012, at 4:57 PM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Aaron, Thanks a lot for the reply. Looks like the documentation is confusing. Here is the link I am referring to: http://www.datastax.com/docs/1.1/operations/tuning#tuning-compaction It does not disable compaction. As per the above url, After running a major compaction, automatic minor compactions are no longer triggered, frequently requiring you to manually run major compactions on a routine basis. ( Just before the heading Tuning Column Family compression in the above link) With respect to the replies below : it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. This is for the minor compaction and major compaction should theoretically result in one large file irrespective of the number of data files initially? This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. Well my worry has been because of the large amount of node movements we have done in the ring. We started off with 6 nodes and increased the capacity to 12 with disproportionate increases every time which resulted in a lot of clean of data folders except system, run repair and then a cleanup with an aborted attempt in between. There were some data.db files older by more than 2 weeks and were not modified since then. My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps (assuming there is a good amount of writes to the table continuously) I did not have a for sure way of telling if everything is alright with the compaction looking at the last modified timestamps of all the data.db files. What are the compaction issues you are having ? Your replies confirm that the timestamps should not be an issue to worry about. So I guess I should not be calling them as issues any more. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. Regards, Ananth On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 6:54 AM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.com wrote: As per datastax documentation, a manual compaction forces the admin to start compaction manually and disables the automated compaction (atleast for major compactions but not minor compactions ) It does not disable compaction. it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. 1. Does a nodetool stop compaction also force the admin to manually run major compaction ( I.e. disable automated major compactions ? ) No. Stop just stops the current compaction. Nothing is disabled. 2. Can a node restart reset the automated major compaction if a node gets into a manual mode compaction for whatever reason ? Major compaction is not automatic. It is the manual nodetool compact command. Automatic (minor) compaction is controlled by min_compaction_threshold and max_compaction_threshold (for the default compaction strategy). 3. What is the ideal number of SSTables for a table in a keyspace ( I mean are there any indicators as to whether my compaction is alright or not ? ) This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. For example, I have seen SSTables on the disk more than 10 days old wherein there were other SSTables belonging to the same table but much younger than the older SSTables ( No problems. 4. Does a upgradesstables fix any compaction issues ? What are the compaction issues you are having ? Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 18/11/2012, at 1:18 AM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com
Re: Query regarding SSTable timestamps and counts
On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 7:57 PM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: As per the above url, After running a major compaction, automatic minor compactions are no longer triggered, frequently requiring you to manually run major compactions on a routine basis. ( Just before the heading Tuning Column Family compression in the above link) This inaccurate statement has been questioned a few times on the mailing list. Generally what happens is people discuss it for about 10 emails and then give up because they can't really make sense of it. If you google for cassandra-user and that sentence above, you should find the threads. I suggest mailing d...@datastax.com, explaining your confusion, and asking them to fix it. =Rob -- =Robert Coli AIMGTALK - rc...@palominodb.com YAHOO - rcoli.palominob SKYPE - rcoli_palominodb
Re: Query regarding SSTable timestamps and counts
As per datastax documentation, a manual compaction forces the admin to start compaction manually and disables the automated compaction (atleast for major compactions but not minor compactions ) It does not disable compaction. it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. 1. Does a nodetool stop compaction also force the admin to manually run major compaction ( I.e. disable automated major compactions ? ) No. Stop just stops the current compaction. Nothing is disabled. 2. Can a node restart reset the automated major compaction if a node gets into a manual mode compaction for whatever reason ? Major compaction is not automatic. It is the manual nodetool compact command. Automatic (minor) compaction is controlled by min_compaction_threshold and max_compaction_threshold (for the default compaction strategy). 3. What is the ideal number of SSTables for a table in a keyspace ( I mean are there any indicators as to whether my compaction is alright or not ? ) This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. For example, I have seen SSTables on the disk more than 10 days old wherein there were other SSTables belonging to the same table but much younger than the older SSTables ( No problems. 4. Does a upgradesstables fix any compaction issues ? What are the compaction issues you are having ? Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 18/11/2012, at 1:18 AM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: We have a cluster running cassandra 1.1.4. On this cluster, 1. We had to move the nodes around a bit when we were adding new nodes (there was quite a good amount of node movement ) 2. We had to stop compactions during some of the days to save some disk space on some of the nodes when they were running very very low on disk spaces. (via nodetool stop COMPACTION) As per datastax documentation, a manual compaction forces the admin to start compaction manually and disables the automated compaction (atleast for major compactions but not minor compactions ) Here are the questions I have regarding compaction: 1. Does a nodetool stop compaction also force the admin to manually run major compaction ( I.e. disable automated major compactions ? ) 2. Can a node restart reset the automated major compaction if a node gets into a manual mode compaction for whatever reason ? 3. What is the ideal number of SSTables for a table in a keyspace ( I mean are there any indicators as to whether my compaction is alright or not ? ) . For example, I have seen SSTables on the disk more than 10 days old wherein there were other SSTables belonging to the same table but much younger than the older SSTables ( The node movement and repair and cleanup happened between the older SSTables and the new SSTables being touched/modified) 4. Does a upgradesstables fix any compaction issues ? Regards, Ananth
Re: Query regarding SSTable timestamps and counts
Hello Aaron, Thanks a lot for the reply. Looks like the documentation is confusing. Here is the link I am referring to: http://www.datastax.com/docs/1.1/operations/tuning#tuning-compaction It does not disable compaction. As per the above url, After running a major compaction, automatic minor compactions are no longer triggered, frequently requiring you to manually run major compactions on a routine basis. ( Just before the heading Tuning Column Family compression in the above link) With respect to the replies below : it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. This is for the minor compaction and major compaction should theoretically result in one large file irrespective of the number of data files initially? This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. Well my worry has been because of the large amount of node movements we have done in the ring. We started off with 6 nodes and increased the capacity to 12 with disproportionate increases every time which resulted in a lot of clean of data folders except system, run repair and then a cleanup with an aborted attempt in between. There were some data.db files older by more than 2 weeks and were not modified since then. My understanding of the compaction process was that since data files keep continuously merging we should not have data files with very old last modified timestamps (assuming there is a good amount of writes to the table continuously) I did not have a for sure way of telling if everything is alright with the compaction looking at the last modified timestamps of all the data.db files. What are the compaction issues you are having ? Your replies confirm that the timestamps should not be an issue to worry about. So I guess I should not be calling them as issues any more. But performing an upgradesstables did decrease the number of data files and removed all the data files with the old timestamps. Regards, Ananth On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 6:54 AM, aaron morton aa...@thelastpickle.comwrote: As per datastax documentation, a manual compaction forces the admin to start compaction manually and disables the automated compaction (atleast for major compactions but not minor compactions ) It does not disable compaction. it creates one big file, which will not be compacted until there are (by default) 3 other very big files. 1. Does a nodetool stop compaction also force the admin to manually run major compaction ( I.e. disable automated major compactions ? ) No. Stop just stops the current compaction. Nothing is disabled. 2. Can a node restart reset the automated major compaction if a node gets into a manual mode compaction for whatever reason ? Major compaction is not automatic. It is the manual nodetool compact command. Automatic (minor) compaction is controlled by min_compaction_threshold and max_compaction_threshold (for the default compaction strategy). 3. What is the ideal number of SSTables for a table in a keyspace ( I mean are there any indicators as to whether my compaction is alright or not ? ) This is not something you have to worry about. Unless you are seeing 1,000's of files using the default compaction. For example, I have seen SSTables on the disk more than 10 days old wherein there were other SSTables belonging to the same table but much younger than the older SSTables ( No problems. 4. Does a upgradesstables fix any compaction issues ? What are the compaction issues you are having ? Cheers - Aaron Morton Freelance Cassandra Developer New Zealand @aaronmorton http://www.thelastpickle.com On 18/11/2012, at 1:18 AM, Ananth Gundabattula agundabatt...@gmail.com wrote: We have a cluster running cassandra 1.1.4. On this cluster, 1. We had to move the nodes around a bit when we were adding new nodes (there was quite a good amount of node movement ) 2. We had to stop compactions during some of the days to save some disk space on some of the nodes when they were running very very low on disk spaces. (via nodetool stop COMPACTION) As per datastax documentation, a manual compaction forces the admin to start compaction manually and disables the automated compaction (atleast for major compactions but not minor compactions ) Here are the questions I have regarding compaction: 1. Does a nodetool stop compaction also force the admin to manually run major compaction ( I.e. disable automated major compactions ? ) 2. Can a node restart reset the automated major compaction if a node gets into a manual mode compaction for whatever reason ? 3. What is the ideal number of SSTables for a table in a keyspace ( I mean are there any indicators as to whether my compaction is alright or not ? ) . For example, I have seen SSTables on the disk more than 10 days old wherein there were other SSTables belonging to the