Create a 3 shard set, sh1, sh2, sh3 Start a mongos & config server Connect to mongos Create 4 DBs and insert data. Note that the DBs are created in a round-robin fashion across the shard nodes, i.e., sh1 - db1& db4 sh2 - db2 sh3 - db3 Remove sh2: db.adminCommand( { removeShard: "sh2" } ) The state will go to "draining", but will not complete because the primary database(s) must be moved (movePrimary) or dropped Create another DB and insert data Run the db.adminCommand( { removeShard: "sh2" } ) command The new DB is now created on this shard node Note same will happen if using mongorestore