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Queue depth refers to the number of disk transactions that can be in flight from an initiator port (on a host server) to a target port (on the storage appliance). If required, you can modify the queue depth settings for a host server FC or iSCSI adapter.
A target port on a PowerStore appliance supports multiple host initiator ports. Multiple host initiator ports send data concurrently to a target port. Limit initiator queue depth to control the number of transactions an initiator can send to a target. Flooding occurs when a target port becomes saturated, and transactions are queued. Flooding causes higher latency and degraded performance for the affected workload.
With PowerStore SAN configurations, configure up to four front-end data (target) ports per PowerStore node per fabric. Do not configure more than four ports because this configuration might cause performance degradation. Configure two to four ports for an optimal configuration. Multiple target ports spread out I/O and reduce the risk of port saturation.
On a Windows Server host, queue depth is a function of the Microsoft storport.sys driver and the vendor-specific miniport driver for the FC or iSCSI adapter. The default queue-depth settings are adequate for most workloads.
Note: Do not modify queue-depth settings unless you have a specific reason to do so. Test queue-depth changes first in a nonproduction environment.
Consider the following example:
However, consider the possible negative impact if you change queue depth settings.
See the documentation for your host adapter for information about queue depth settings.
For example, see the Marvell QLogic Fibre Channel Adapters Users Guide at Marvell.com.