Currently when you try to add a shard with the same name as an existing shard you get a duplicate key error, and if you try to add a shard with the same host(s) as an existing shard you get a not master error
sh.status() --- Sharding Status --- sharding version: { "_id" : 1, "minCompatibleVersion" : 5, "currentVersion" : 6, "clusterId" : ObjectId("55dcf519b004ad14bc014bef") } shards: { "_id" : "rs1", "host" : "rs1/ubuntu:20001,ubuntu:20002,ubuntu:20003" } { "_id" : "rs2", "host" : "rs2/ubuntu:30001,ubuntu:30002,ubuntu:30003", "draining" : true } balancer: Currently enabled: yes Currently running: yes Balancer lock taken at Thu Sep 03 2015 18:20:26 GMT-0400 (EDT) by ubuntu:27017:1441318568:1804289383:Balancer:846930886 Failed balancer rounds in last 5 attempts: 0 Migration Results for the last 24 hours: No recent migrations databases: { "_id" : "temp", "primary" : "rs1", "partitioned" : false } { "_id" : "admin", "partitioned" : false, "primary" : "config" } mongos> sh.addShard('rs1/ubuntu:20001') { "ok" : 0, "errmsg" : "E11000 duplicate key error collection: config.shards index: _id_ dup key: { : \"rs1\" }", "code" : 11000 } mongos> sh.addShard('rs3/ubuntu:20001') { "ok" : 0, "errmsg" : "No master found for set rs3", "code" : 10107 }