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

**URL:** <https://forum.scylladb.com/t/is-it-possible-to-change-the-replication-factor-rf-of-a-live-cluster-if-so-how-can-i-do-it/5313>\
**Category:** ScyllaDB\
**Tags:** data-model, architecture, replication\
**Created:** [March 19, 2026, 4:29pm UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/is-it-possible-to-change-the-replication-factor-rf-of-a-live-cluster-if-so-how-can-i-do-it/5313 "2026-03-19T16:29:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sraftery](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@sraftery](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/sraftery)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2026, 4:29pm UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/is-it-possible-to-change-the-replication-factor-rf-of-a-live-cluster-if-so-how-can-i-do-it/5313/1 "2026-03-19T16:29:09Z")

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That is a cluster that’s in production.

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**Author:** ![Guy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/guy/32/9_2.png) [@Guy](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/Guy)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2026, 4:34pm UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/is-it-possible-to-change-the-replication-factor-rf-of-a-live-cluster-if-so-how-can-i-do-it/5313/2 "2026-03-19T16:34:01Z")

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Yes, you can increase or decrease the [replication factor](https://university.scylladb.com/courses/scylla-essentials-overview/lessons/high-availability/topic/fault-tolerance-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](https://docs.scylladb.com/manual/stable/cql/ddl.html#alter-keyspace-statement) the RF for the keyspace

2. If:

You can read more about this in the [Fault Tolerance section](https://docs.scylladb.com/manual/stable/architecture/architecture-fault-tolerance.html), and in the [Architecture lesson](https://university.scylladb.com/courses/scylla-essentials-overview/lessons/architecture/) in ScyllaDB University.