[[indexing-buffer]]
=== Indexing buffer settings

The indexing buffer is used to store newly indexed documents.  When it fills
up, the documents in the buffer are written to a segment on disk. It is divided
between all shards on the node.

The following settings are _static_ and must be configured on every data node
in the cluster:

`indices.memory.index_buffer_size`::
(<<static-cluster-setting,Static>>)
Accepts either a percentage or a byte size value. It defaults to `10%`,
meaning that `10%` of the total heap allocated to a node will be used as the
indexing buffer size shared across all shards.

`indices.memory.min_index_buffer_size`::
(<<static-cluster-setting,Static>>)
If the `index_buffer_size` is specified as a percentage, then this
setting can be used to specify an absolute minimum.  Defaults to `48mb`.

`indices.memory.max_index_buffer_size`::
(<<static-cluster-setting,Static>>)
If the `index_buffer_size` is specified as a percentage, then this
setting can be used to specify an absolute maximum.  Defaults to unbounded.
