Message Queuing Message and Data Files

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista

By default, Message Queuing stores message and data files on the system drive of the local computer. Therefore, performance of the system drive may significantly impact the performance of Message Queuing. This topic discusses the default location of Message Queuing message and data files, techniques that can be used to increase the performance of Message Queuing by changing the default location of these files, and how to optimize the performance of the existing location used to store these files.

Default location of Message Queuing 5.0 message and data files

By default, Message Queuing writes messages, log files, and transaction log files to the %windir%\system32\msmq\storage directory of the local computer. By default, Message Queuing 5.0 writes text files that describe properties of local queues to the %windir%\system32\msmq\storage\lqs directory of the local computer. For more information about the files that are written to these directories, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article Interpreting file names in the Storage directory in Message Queue Server and in Message Queuing.

Changing the default location of Message Queuing message and data files to optimize performance

Message Queuing performance can be increased by changing the default location of Message Queuing message and data files so that these files are written to an optimized RAID device or Storage area network (SAN).

To change the default location of Message Queuing message and data files

  1. Click Start, point to Run, type compmgmt.msc, and press ENTER to display the Computer Management MMC console.

  2. In the console tree, right-click Message Queuing.

    Where?

    • Computer Management/Services and Applications/Message Queuing

  3. Point to Properties and click the Storage tab.

  4. Enter the desired location for Message files folder, Message logger folder, and Transaction logger folder and click OK.

  5. For optimal performance, the Transaction logger folder should reside on a different physical disk than the Message files folder and Message logger folder.

Note

The locations specified for these folders must appear as a fixed drive on the local computer. Mapped drives cannot be specified as targets for these folders.

Optimizing the performance of the existing location used to store message and data files

Consider using one or more of the following methods to optimize the performance of disks that are used to store Message Queuing message and data files:

Optimize the performance of disks used to store message and data files

  1. Choose the highest performing disk type that you can afford for your environment. SCSI drives typically offer excellent performance for a cost premium although Serial ATA (SATA) drives are an excellent alternative to SCSI solutions with nearly the same performance at a lower price point.

  2. If you will be hosting your Message Queuing files on the system drive, ensure that your system drive is large enough to accommodate both your operating system and your Message Queuing files. Also factor in your swap file requirements when calculating the disk space required by your operating system if your system drive will host the Windows swap file.

  3. Create a task in Windows Task Scheduler to defragment the drive that is used to store Message Queuing files. Since disk fragmentation can rob overall system performance, disk defragmentation should be performed as part of regular computer maintenance.