Changing the Queue Depth on Qlogic Fibre HBAs

You may want to change the queue depth for several reasons... Support recommendations / Performance tuning etc.

Here I will show you how to change the queue depth for a Qlogic HBA from 32 to 64.

VMware default this to 32 as this generally is the best for most configurations, however everyone has different needs.

1. List the Qlogic HBA types:

/usr/sbin/esxcfg-module -l | grep -i ql
vmw_satp_eql 0x418029e5d000 0x1000 0x417feacad2a0 0x1000 16 Yes
qla2xxx 0x418029e9f000 0x38000 0x417feacd2440 0xda000 22 Yes

2. List the Qlogic HBas on your ESX server:

ls /proc/scsi/qla2xxx/
4 5

3. Display the detailed information for one of the specific HBAs:

cat /proc/scsi/qla2xxx/4
QLogic PCI to Fibre Channel Host Adapter for QLE2460:
        Firmware version 4.04.09 [IP] [Multi-ID] [84XX] , Driver version 8.02.01-k1-vmw43
BIOS version 2.02
FCODE version 2.00
EFI version 2.03
Flash FW version 4.04.02
ISP: ISP2432
Request Queue = 0x41813000, Response Queue = 0x41894000
Request Queue count = 4096, Response Queue count = 512
Total number of interrupts = 5036
    Device queue depth = 0x20
Number of free request entries = 3679
Number of mailbox timeouts = 0
Number of ISP aborts = 0
Number of loop resyncs = 1
Host adapter:loop state = <READY>, flags = 0x105ac3
Dpc flags = 0x0
MBX flags = 0x0
Link down Timeout = 045
Port down retry =   005
Login retry count =   008
Execution throttle = 2048
ZIO mode = 0x6, ZIO timer = 1
Commands retried with dropped frame(s) = 0
Product ID = 0000 0000 0000 0000
NPIV Supported : Yes
Max Virtual Ports = 127

SCSI Device Information:
scsi-qla0-adapter-node=2000001b329328b8:610813:0;
scsi-qla0-adapter-port=2100001b329328b8:610813:0;

FC Target-Port List:
scsi-qla0-target-0=5006016941e00787;
scsi-qla0-target-1=5006016041e00787;

FC Port Information:
scsi-qla0-port-0=50060160c1e00787:5006016941e00787:610113:81;
scsi-qla0-port-1=50060160c1e00787:5006016041e00787:610013:82;

4. View the modules loaded for the Qlogic HBA:

/usr/sbin/esxcfg-module -g qla2xxx
qla2xxx enabled = 1 options = ''

5. Display the current Queue Depth for the Qlogic HBA:

cat /proc/scsi/qla2xxx/4 | grep -i "queue depth"
Device queue depth = 0x20

6. Change the Queue Depth for the HBA to 64:
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-module -s ql2xmaxqdepth=64 qla2xxx

7. Check the change is shown in the "esx.conf":

cat /etc/vmware/esx.conf | grep -i ql
/vmkernel/module/qla2xxx.o/options = "ql2xmaxqdepth=64"

8. Reboot the ESX server for the change to take effect:

NOTE: Ensure the ESX server is in maintenance mode and all VMs are either vMotioned to another server or powered off.

reboot

9. Display the current Queue Depth for the Qlogic HBA:

cat /proc/scsi/qla2xxx/4 | grep -i "queue depth"
Device queue depth = 0x40

The queue depth has now been sucessfully changed for this HBA from 32 to 64.

To change the queue depth on additional HBAs in the ESX server, repeat steps 5 to 9.

Changing the Queue Depth on Qlogic Fibre HBAs

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