# \[Question\] A way to set global replcation factor?

**URL:** <https://forum.weaviate.io/t/question-a-way-to-set-global-replcation-factor/4483>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** technical\
**Created:** [October 9, 2024, 1:48am UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/question-a-way-to-set-global-replcation-factor/4483 "2024-10-09T01:48:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zhenghua\_Liu](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.weaviate.io/zhenghua_liu/32/2085_2.png) [@Zhenghua\_Liu](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/Zhenghua_Liu)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2024, 1:48am UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/question-a-way-to-set-global-replcation-factor/4483/1 "2024-10-09T01:48:30Z")

</div>

"I’m looking for a solution to set a global replication factor for vector indexes. The official documentation only mentions specifying this parameter when creating a vector index. I’m using an open-source software where vector indexes are created dynamically without specifying this parameter, and the database already has many vector indexes. Is there a way to add a global parameter and automatically replicate the existing vector indexes to match the desired replication factor?

[Replication Document](https://weaviate.io/developers/weaviate/configuration/replication)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zhenghua\_Liu](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.weaviate.io/zhenghua_liu/32/2085_2.png) [@Zhenghua\_Liu](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/Zhenghua_Liu)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2024, 1:51am UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/question-a-way-to-set-global-replcation-factor/4483/2 "2024-10-09T01:51:29Z")

</div>

The request load isn’t heavy. Currently, there’s only a single node, which isn’t robust for production use. I’m looking for a way to ensure high availability for Weaviate, not focused on high throughput.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DudaNogueira](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.weaviate.io/dudanogueira/32/7846_2.png) [@DudaNogueira](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/DudaNogueira)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2024, 7:15am UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/question-a-way-to-set-global-replcation-factor/4483/3 "2024-10-10T07:15:28Z")

</div>

hi @Zhenghua_Liu !!

Welcome to our community 🤗

Thank you very much! I have just realized that we do indeed have this feature, however it was undocumented 🙈

the environment variable you want is:

`REPLICATION_MINIMUM_FACTOR `

Once you set this for your cluster, it will always specify that value as the replication factor, unless you explicitly specify while creating a collection.

I will work on adding this to our docs.

Thanks a lot for asking this 😍

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zhenghua\_Liu](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.weaviate.io/zhenghua_liu/32/2085_2.png) [@Zhenghua\_Liu](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/Zhenghua_Liu)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2024, 3:31am UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/question-a-way-to-set-global-replcation-factor/4483/5 "2024-10-21T03:31:35Z")

</div>

I really appreciate the clarification about `REPLICATION_MINIMUM_FACTOR`. I do have a follow-up question: If I set this value to `2` and then add a new Weaviate node to the cluster, will the existing collections automatically replicate to the new node?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DudaNogueira](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.weaviate.io/dudanogueira/32/7846_2.png) [@DudaNogueira](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/DudaNogueira)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/question-a-way-to-set-global-replcation-factor/4483/6 "2024-10-21T21:35:23Z")

</div>

hi @Zhenghua_Liu !!

It will not. Only new collections or tenants.

This feature is in [our roadmap](https://weaviate.io/developers/weaviate/roadmap), and we call it dynamic scaling. With it you will be able to move shards around, helping this kind of scenario or when you want for example to drain a note.

Let me know if this helps!

Thanks!