---
title: Disk underutilized on cold tier
description: Describes what AutoOps detects and surfaces with the Disk underutilized on cold tier insight: Cold-tier nodes use only a small fraction of provisioned disk over time.
url: https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/autoops-insights/tree/main/elasticsearch/disk_underutilized_on_cold_tier
products:
  - Elastic Cloud Enterprise
  - Elastic Cloud Hosted
  - Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes
  - Elasticsearch
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Hosted: Generally available
  - Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes: Generally available
  - Elastic Cloud Enterprise: Generally available
  - Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available
---

# Disk underutilized on cold tier
Cold-tier nodes use only a small fraction of provisioned disk over time. Paid storage sits idle while monthly disk charges continue.
<note>
  For a complete list of insights, refer to [AutoOps insights](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/autoops-insights/tree/main/elasticsearch).
</note>


## Insight details


| Field     | Value                              |
|-----------|------------------------------------|
| Component | Elasticsearch                      |
| Severity  | Low                                |
| Scope     | Node                               |
| Domains   | disk-storage, resource-utilization |


## Example: What you might see in AutoOps

The following is an example of what you might see when this insight is triggered. Real insights use live data and links from your deployment or cluster.

### Disk underutilized on cold tier


#### What was detected

Disk is underutilized on cold tier.
We detected low disk utilization on the following node: `es-data-01` and `es-data-02`. The node is only utilizing 85% of the available disk space. According to best practices and considerations of capacity planning, you might be able to reduce the disk allocation, thereby reducing the optimizing resource utilization. This can be done by moving to smaller disks or reducing the number of data nodes.

#### Recommendations

<note>
  AutoOps shows different recommendations depending on how their conditions match your deployment or cluster.
</note>

<dropdown title="Reduce disk size on data nodes">
  **Condition**: Always shown for this insight.Disk usage on cold nodes is below 48 GB%. Switch to smaller disks to improve utilization while keeping enough headroom for growth.
</dropdown>

<dropdown title="Reduce data node count">
  **Condition**: Always shown for this insight.Disk usage on cold nodes is below 48 GB%. Scale down the tier if remaining capacity still meets your headroom target.
</dropdown>


#### Background and impact

If there is more disk space allocated to the cluster than needed, there is likely potential to optimize resource utilization. By moving to smaller disks or scaling down the deployment, you can achieve optimal disk utilization.