How can I calculate Max index size to meet data retention needs?

[marciodcr]

Hi,

I need to keep about 6 months of searchable data in the splunk environment which i am working with.

The average daily rate is 25GB/day and i have calculated the max index size through this way:

25GB * 180 days = 4500GB / 3 + 50GB = 1550000

So, to meet the retention needs, the max index size should be set to ~1.5TB.

Is this information correct?

Thanks!

Marcio

[jtrucks]

Some data types only give you about a 50% reduction in space, so you could be guessing low. However, you can simply cap the retention at 180days with frozenTimePeriodInSecs = 15552000. If you don't want to keep anything after that, don't provide a frozen path, and the data vanishes neatly.

[kristian_kolb]

Just ensure that the maxTotalDataSizeMB (i.e. the max size of the index) is set sufficiently high so that the size constraint doesn't apply before the time constraint.

Also, make sure that you have enough diskspace.

/k