You can enable balancing for a specific collection with the sh.enableBalancing() method. When you enable balancing for a collection, MongoDB will not immediately begin balancing data. However, if the data in your sharded collection is not balanced, MongoDB will be able to begin distributing the data more evenly. To enable balancing on a collection, connect to a mongos with the mongo shell and call the sh.enableBalancing() method. The sh.enableBalancing() method accepts as its parameter the full namespace of the collection. sh.enableBalancing("students.grades") For example: Enable Balancing on a Collection Confirm Balancing is Enabled or Disabled Remove Shards from an Existing Sharded Cluster Ensure the Balancer Process is Enabled MongoDB Documentation, Release 3.0.4 To confirm whether balancing for a collection is enabled or disabled, query the collections collection in the config database for the collection namespace and check the noBalance field. For example: db.getSiblingDB("config").collections.findOne({_id : "students.grades"}).noBalance; This operation will return a null error, true , false , or no output: New in version 3.0.0: You can also see if the balancer is enabled using sh.status() . The currently-enabled field indicates if the balancer is enabled. To remove a shard you must ensure the shard’s data is migrated to the remaining shards in the cluster. This procedure describes how to safely migrate data and how to remove a shard. This procedure describes how to safely remove a single shard. Do not use this procedure to migrate an entire cluster to new hardware. To migrate an entire shard to new hardware, migrate individual shards as if they were independent replica sets. To remove a shard, first connect to one of the cluster’s mongos instances using mongo shell. Then use the sequence of tasks in this document to remove a shard from the cluster. To successfully migrate data from a shard, the balancer process must be enabled. Check the balancer state using the sh.getBalancerState() helper in the mongo shell. For more information, see the section on balancer operations (page 717). 719 10.3. Sharded Cluster Tutorials • A null error indicates the collection namespace is incorrect. • If the result is true , balancing is disabled. • If the result is false , balancing is enabled currently but has been disabled in the past for the collection. Balancing of this collection will begin the next time the balancer runs. • If the operation returns no output, balancing is enabled currently and has never been disabled in the past for this collection. Balancing of this collection will begin the next time the balancer runs.