Is it possible to change the Replication Factor (RF) of a live cluster? If so, how can I do it?

That is a cluster that’s in production.

Yes, you can increase or decrease the replication factor of a running cluster.

Note that it’s generally not recommended to use an RF lower than 3, and if you’re using a multi datacenter setup, probably RF=3 in each datacenter.

To actually change the replication factor you’ll want to:

  1. Alter the RF for the keyspace

  2. If:

You can read more about this in the Fault Tolerance section, and in the Architecture lesson in ScyllaDB University.

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