If available processing resources (CPU time) are not limiting messaging performance, MSMQ independent clients and servers may be able to improve messaging performance by storing the various files used to implement messaging across multiple physical disks.
MSMQ can use two different drives to send and receive standard messages, or three for transactional messages. If you are sending transactional messages, you may also be able to put the data and log files for the application you are transacting with on two or more different drives. However, if your CPU usage is at or near 100 percent, adding additional disk drives will not improve messaging performance.
To determine if additional hard disk drives will improve messaging performance, use Performance Monitor to track the % Processor Time and Avg. Disk Queue Length counters. If sustained CPU use is above 75% while sending messages, adding processing capacity may improve messaging performance. If the average disk queue length for any drive is greater than 0.6 while sending messages, additional drives may improve messaging performance.
For more information on putting the MSMQ message queuing files on separate physical drives, see "Maximizing MSMQ Messaging Performance" in Chapter 3, "Managing Your MSMQ Enterprise" and "Improving Messaging Performance with Multiple Disks" in Chapter 6, "Deploying MSMQ."