Release notes: With HBASE-8176("Dynamic Schema Configurations"), we can define table/column family specific configuration by HColumnDescriptor.setValue() or HTableDescriptor.setValue(). We can also do this easily in hbase shell, like this: Change the table-scope by set attribute CONFIG like this: alter 'test', METHOD => 'table_att', CONFIG => {'hbase.hstore.compaction.min' => '5'} Change the column family config by set attribute CONFIG like this:a alter 'test', NAME => 'f', CONFIG => {'hbase.hstore.compaction.min' => a'5'}