title: select count(*) runs into timeout issues in Cassandra
body: <p>Maybe it is a stupid question, but I'm not able to determine the size of a table in Cassandra.</p>
  
  <p>This is what I tried:</p>
  
  <p><code>select count(*) from articles;</code></p>
  
  <p>It works fine if the table is small but once it fills up, I always run into timeout issues:</p>
  
  <p>cqlsh:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>OperationTimedOut: errors={}, last_host=127.0.0.1</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>DBeaver:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Run 1: 225,000 (7477 ms)</li>
  <li>Run 2: 233,637 (8265 ms)</li>
  <li>Run 3: 216,595 (7269 ms)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I assume that it hits some timeout and just aborts. The actual number of entries in the table is probably much higher.</p>
  
  <p>I'm testing against a local Cassandra instance which is completely idle. I would not mind if it has to do a full table scan and is unresponsive during that time.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Is there a way to reliably count the number of entries in a Cassandra table?</strong></p>
  
  <p>I'm using Cassandra 2.1.13.</p>