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Is there a storage limit for MSMQ on Windows 7? I read that for versions older than 3.0, there is a 8GB limit. But again in a white paper read

MSMQ 3.0 message storage is now limited only by disk space. In particular, MSMQ 3.0 has relaxed the 2 gigabyte (GB) storage limit per machine. The theoretical capacity limit for persistent MSMQ 3.0 messages is now 1 terabyte (TB).

Any input/pointers?

Tora
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  • "I read that for versions older than 3.0, there is a 8GB limit." Do you have a link to this information? The limit was 2GB for MSMQ 2.0, as mentioned in the text block you highlighted. That reference to 1 terabyte would have been a guestimate by whoever wrote the white paper (pity I didn't spot it and get the document fixed when I worked at Microsoft). – John Breakwell Jun 14 '11 at 20:28

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There's not really a storage limit for MSMQ, because MSMQ is a messaging service, not a data-storage service (a.k.a. a "database"). Here's an excellent article on the subject:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/johnbreakwell/archive/2008/02/29/what-are-msmq-s-limits-if-i-had-a-farthing-for-every-time.aspx

The summary is: if you're asking about the storage limits of MSMQ, you're probably not using MSMQ correctly.

MusiGenesis
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  • I read the post and do understand that MSMQ is not for storage. My concern was if the app reading from the queue fails/gets slow, what happens after the queue reaches its 12GB limit for 64-bit machines? Also this white paper I read kind of confused me... – Tora Jun 13 '11 at 19:48
  • heres the paper title: Message Queuing in Windows XP: New Features – Tora Jun 13 '11 at 19:49
  • As the article linked to points out, MSMQ limits are not as simple as some absolute amount of memory that's required. To the extent that MSMQ can cache messages for later delivery, this caching mechanism is only intended for dealing with very short periods of downtime. If your architecture is bringing you anywhere remotely near this limit, you probably need to re-architect your solution (possibly using SQL Server to store un-sent messages instead). – MusiGenesis Jun 13 '11 at 19:52
  • "what happens after the queue reaches its 12GB limit for 64-bit machines?" MSMQ storage is not, and never has been, limited by physical RAM. – John Breakwell Jun 14 '11 at 20:34