# How to balance partition/disc usage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ops\ **Created:** [4 February 2021 09:18 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/how-to-balance-partition-disc-usage/602 "2021-02-04T09:18:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![roadSurfer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.confluent.io/roadsurfer/32/309_2.png) [@roadSurfer](https://forum.confluent.io/u/roadSurfer)\ **Post date:** [4 February 2021 09:18 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/how-to-balance-partition-disc-usage/602/1 "2021-02-04T09:18:19Z")
I’m playing around with a simple 3-node cluster. I only have 7 topics, most with 10 partitions (one with 1, and another 25) and all replication factor of 2. I have ensured these partitions are spread amongst the Brokers. Most topics are set to “delete” and one to “compact”. Self-balancing is on and set to improve balance “anytime”. Like I say, simple. Over time I can see in Control Center that the disc usage goes out of balance. Brokers 1 and 2 are at 4.8GB and 4.4GB respectively, but Broker 3 sits at 2.2GB. So something is up dspite the configuration being identical. I have tried searching for information on how trace the problem, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. I _suspect_ it’s a problem with the Partition balance (Broker 3 seems to have about a third the partitions of the others in QA), but is this not what self-balancing is supposed to address? ---
**Author:** ![rmoff](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.confluent.io/rmoff/32/3_2.png) [@rmoff](https://forum.confluent.io/u/rmoff)\ **Post date:** [4 February 2021 14:54 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/how-to-balance-partition-disc-usage/602/2 "2021-02-04T14:54:32Z")
Do all the partitions have similar volumes of data going into them? ---
**Author:** ![roadSurfer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.confluent.io/roadsurfer/32/309_2.png) [@roadSurfer](https://forum.confluent.io/u/roadSurfer)\ **Post date:** [4 February 2021 14:56 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/how-to-balance-partition-disc-usage/602/3 "2021-02-04T14:56:57Z")
In theory they should, but that is a very basic thing I should certainly go and check. I guess if one or two are getting battered, there’s not a lot that balancing can do about it! Edit: A quick mark one eyeball doesn’t show anyting amiss; I shall do some proper digging in a bit. Cheers for the tip. (And yes, I’ll come back and mark this as “Solved” if you’re on the money. 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![roadSurfer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.confluent.io/roadsurfer/32/309_2.png) [@roadSurfer](https://forum.confluent.io/u/roadSurfer)\ **Post date:** [4 February 2021 17:20 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/how-to-balance-partition-disc-usage/602/4 "2021-02-04T17:20:01Z")
Thanks for the tip, @rmoff. It doesn’t appear to be data volume in my topics _but_ while checking that out I spotted that a lot of the topics for Control Center (e.g. `_confluent-controlcenter-6-0-1-1-cluster-rekey`) are only replicated on the first two nodes, not evenly across the all brokers. Maybe I goosed some config somewhere. That may not be the actual problem, but it’s the only thing that is popping out at me. ---
**Author:** ![roadSurfer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.confluent.io/roadsurfer/32/309_2.png) [@roadSurfer](https://forum.confluent.io/u/roadSurfer)\ **Post date:** [5 February 2021 13:21 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/how-to-balance-partition-disc-usage/602/5 "2021-02-05T13:21:44Z")
Yes, it was the Control Center topics causing the imbalance. I am not quite sure why the self-balancing isn’t kicking into to move the topics/partitions around to restore balance, but at least I know the root cause now and can see that our own topics are not the source of the problem. Thanks!