Migrate to dedicated read nodes

From a pod-based index

You can’t migrate a pod-based index directly to dedicated read nodes. First complete Migrate a pod-based index to serverless, which creates a new on-demand index with your data.

If that index has multiple namespaces, consolidate to one namespace, or plan a different architecture. Dedicated read nodes support only a single namespace.

From an on-demand (serverless) index

To migrate an existing on-demand index to dedicated read nodes (including one you created by migrating from pods), follow these steps:

Create a backup of your index

Before migrating, back up your index so you can return to on-demand later, either by converting back or by restoring the backup to a new on-demand index.

Delete extra namespaces

If your index has multiple namespaces, delete all of them except the one you want to keep. Dedicated read nodes support only a single namespace.

If this is a production index, be sure to make a backup before deleting namespaces. Or, if you need multiple namespaces, contact support to discuss early access to multi-namespace support for dedicated read nodes.

Calculate your index size

Determine how many shards you need by sizing your index.

Migrate the index

Call Configure an index. In the request body, in the spec.serverless.read_capacity object, set the following fields:

Field	Value	Notes
`mode`	`Dedicated`
`dedicated.node_type`	`b1` or `t1`	See node types
`dedicated.scaling`	`Manual`	The only supported value
`dedicated.manual.shards`	Number of shards needed	Minimum 1 shard; each shard provides 250 GB of storage
`dedicated.manual.replicas`	Number of replicas needed	Minimum 0 (this pauses the index)

This example migrates an index to dedicated read nodes using b1 nodes, one shard, and one replica:

PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
INDEX_NAME="YOUR_INDEX_NAME"

curl -X PATCH "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/$INDEX_NAME" \
     -H "Accept: application/json" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
     -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2025-10" \
     -d '{
           "spec": {
             "serverless": {
               "read_capacity": {
                 "mode": "Dedicated",
                 "dedicated": {
                   "node_type": "b1",
                   "scaling": "Manual",
                   "manual": {
                     "shards": 1,
                     "replicas": 1
                   }
                 }
               }
             }
           }
         }'

{
  "name": "example-index-to-migrate",
  "vector_type": "dense",
  "metric": "cosine",
  "dimension": 1024,
  "status": {
    "ready": true,
    "state": "Ready"
  },
  "host": "example-index-to-migrate-1c6ab6aa.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "spec": {
    "serverless": {
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "cloud": "aws",
      "read_capacity": {
        "mode": "Dedicated",
        "dedicated": {
          "node_type": "b1",
          "scaling": "Manual",
          "manual": {
            "shards": 1, // <---- desired state
            "replicas": 1
          }
        },
        "status": {
          "state": "Migrating",
          "current_shards": null, //<---- current state
          "current_replicas": null
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "deletion_protection": "disabled",
  "tags": null,
  "embed": {
    "model": "llama-text-embed-v2",
    "field_map": {
      "text": "text"
    },
    "dimension": 1024,
    "metric": "cosine",
    "write_parameters": {
      "dimension": 1024,
      "input_type": "passage",
      "truncate": "END"
    },
    "read_parameters": {
      "dimension": 1024,
      "input_type": "query",
      "truncate": "END"
    },
    "vector_type": "dense"
  }
}

The response includes two status fields:

Field	Description
`status.state`	Overall index status (for example, `Initializing`, `Ready`, `Terminating`)
`spec.serverless.read_capacity.status.state`	Read capacity status (`Migrating`, `Scaling`, `Ready`, `Error`)

If status.state is set to Error, the allocated number of shards was insufficient for the size of the index. Try again, adding more shards as needed.

Monitor the migration

Check the status until spec.serverless.read_capacity.status.state is Ready.

Verify performance

Confirm the index meets your latency and throughput targets.

Get started

Core concepts

Index data

Search

Optimize

Manage data

Manage cost

Move to production

Admin

Operations

Using pods

Migrate to dedicated read nodes

From a pod-based index

From an on-demand (serverless) index

​From a pod-based index

​From an on-demand (serverless) index

From a pod-based index

From an on-demand (serverless) index