Queue Depth

User Guides for VMware Solutions

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An additional benefit to utilizing a Raw Device Mapping is that each RDM has its own queue depth limit, which may in some cases provide increased performance. Because the VM is sending I/O directly to the FlashArray there is no sharing queue depth on a datastore like there is with a VMDK.

Aside from the potentially shared queue depth on the virtual machine SCSI controller, each RDM has its own dedicated queue depth and works under the same rules as a datastore would. This means that if you have a Raw Device Mapping presented to a single virtual machine the queue depth for that RDM would be whatever the HBA queue depth was configured to. Alternatively, if you presented the RDM to multiple virtual machines then the device Number of Outstanding I/Os would be the queue limit for that particular RDM.

For additional information on queue depths, you can refer to Understanding VMware ESXi Queuing and the FlashArray.

Note:

Unless directed by Everpure or VMware Support there typically is no reason to modify either of these values. The default queue depth is sufficient for most workloads.