Ensure Indexes Fit in RAM¶

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Indexes that Hold Only Recent Values in RAM

For the fastest processing, ensure that your indexes fit entirely in RAM so that the system can avoid reading the index from disk.

To check the size of your indexes, use the db.collection.totalIndexSize() helper, which returns data in bytes:

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> db.collection.totalIndexSize()
4294976499

The above example shows an index size of almost 4.3 gigabytes. To ensure this index fits in RAM, you must not only have more than that much RAM available but also must have RAM available for the rest of the working set. Also remember:

If you have and use multiple collections, you must consider the size of all indexes on all collections. The indexes and the working set must be able to fit in memory at the same time.

There are some limited cases where indexes do not need to fit in memory. See Indexes that Hold Only Recent Values in RAM.

Indexes that Hold Only Recent Values in RAM¶

Indexes do not have to fit entirely into RAM in all cases. If the value of the indexed field increments with every insert, and most queries select recently added documents; then MongoDB only needs to keep the parts of the index that hold the most recent or “right-most” values in RAM. This allows for efficient index use for read and write operations and minimize the amount of RAM required to support the index.

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