Hi, See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HBASE-14468
It adds this check to {{HMaster.checkCompactionPolicy()}}: {code} // 1. Check TTL if (hcd.getTimeToLive() == HColumnDescriptor.DEFAULT_TTL) { message = "Default TTL is not supported for FIFO compaction"; throw new IOException(message); } // 2. Check min versions if (hcd.getMinVersions() > 0) { message = "MIN_VERSION > 0 is not supported for FIFO compaction"; throw new IOException(message); } // 3. blocking file count String sbfc = htd.getConfigurationValue(HStore.BLOCKING_STOREFILES_KEY); if (sbfc != null) { blockingFileCount = Integer.parseInt(sbfc); } if (blockingFileCount < 1000) { message = "blocking file count '" + HStore.BLOCKING_STOREFILES_KEY + "' " + blockingFileCount + " is below recommended minimum of 1000"; throw new IOException(message); } {code} Why does it only check the blocking file count on the HTD level, while others are check on the HCD level? Doing this for example fails because of it: {noformat} hbase(main):008:0> create 'ttltable', { NAME => 'cf1', TTL => 300, CONFIGURATION => { 'hbase.hstore.defaultengine.compactionpolicy.class' => 'org.apache.hadoop.hbase.regionserver.compactions.FIFOCompactionPolicy', 'hbase.hstore.blockingStoreFiles' => 2000 } } ERROR: org.apache.hadoop.hbase.DoNotRetryIOException: blocking file count 'hbase.hstore.blockingStoreFiles' 10 is below recommended minimum of 1000 Set hbase.table.sanity.checks to false at conf or table descriptor if you want to bypass sanity checks at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.master.HMaster.warnOrThrowExceptionForFailure(HMaster.java:1782) at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.master.HMaster.sanityCheckTableDescriptor(HMaster.java:1663) at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.master.HMaster.createTable(HMaster.java:1545) at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.master.MasterRpcServices.createTable(MasterRpcServices.java:469) at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.protobuf.generated.MasterProtos$MasterService$2.callBlockingMethod(MasterProtos.java:58549) at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.ipc.RpcServer.call(RpcServer.java:2339) at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.ipc.CallRunner.run(CallRunner.java:123) at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.ipc.RpcExecutor$Handler.run(RpcExecutor.java:188) at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.ipc.RpcExecutor$Handler.run(RpcExecutor.java:168) Caused by: java.io.IOException: blocking file count 'hbase.hstore.blockingStoreFiles' 10 is below recommended minimum of 1000 at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.master.HMaster.checkCompactionPolicy(HMaster.java:1773) at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.master.HMaster.sanityCheckTableDescriptor(HMaster.java:1661) ... 7 more {noformat} That should work on the column family level, right? Shall I file a JIRA? Cheers, Lars