balancerStop

Definition

balancerStop

Disables the balancer in a sharded cluster. If a balancing round is in progress, the operation waits for balancing to complete.

You can only issue the balancerStop against the admin database on a mongos instance.

Important

Leaving the balancer disabled for extended periods of time can lead to unbalanced shards, which degrade cluster performance. Only disable the balancer if necessary, and ensure that you re-enable the balancer when maintenance is complete.

Tip

In mongosh, this command can also be run through the sh.stopBalancer() helper method.

Helper methods are convenient for mongosh users, but they may not return the same level of information as database commands. In cases where the convenience is not needed or the additional return fields are required, use the database command.

Starting in MongoDB 6.0.3, automatic chunk splitting is not performed. This is because of balancing policy improvements. Auto-splitting commands still exist, but do not perform an operation.

In MongoDB versions earlier than 6.1, the command disables auto-splitting for the sharded cluster. To enable auto-splitting when the balancer is disabled, you can use sh.enableAutoSplit().

Compatibility

This command is available in deployments hosted in the following environments:

• MongoDB Atlas: The fully managed service for MongoDB deployments in the cloud

• MongoDB Enterprise: The subscription-based, self-managed version of MongoDB

• MongoDB Community: The source-available, free-to-use, and self-managed version of MongoDB

Syntax

The command has the following syntax:

db.adminCommand(
   {
     balancerStop: 1,
     maxTimeMS: <number>
   }
)

Example

To stop the balancer thread, connect to a mongos instance and issue the following command:

db.adminCommand( { balancerStop: 1 } )

Learn More

• sh.stopBalancer()

• balancerStart