"Vector Database Guide": Vector Database Pinecone Extended Index

Table of contents

Vertical and Horizontal Scaling

vertical expansion

Horizontal expansion

add pods

add copy

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In this topic, we will explain how to scale the index horizontally and vertically.

Vertical and Horizontal Scaling

If you need to expand your environment to accommodate more vectors, you can either modify an existing index to scale it vertically or create a new index and scale it horizontally. This article describes both methods and how to effectively scale your index.

 

vertical expansion

Vertical scaling is fast and requires no downtime. This is a good option when you cannot pause upserts and must continue serving traffic. It also lets you double the capacity in no time. However, there are a few more factors to consider.

By changing the pod size, you can scale to x2, x4, and x8 pod sizes, which means each step doubles your capacity. Upgrading to a new capacity will effectively make the number of Pods used by each step