Patent ID: 7818478

Claim:
A data processing system, comprising: an operating system to allocate memory to one or more queue banks, each of which is dedicated for use in performing I/O operations; partitioning logic coupled to the operating system to manage a processing partition in which the queue banks are being used and adapted to remove the memory that is to be removed from the processing partition at the time when none of the queue banks that has been allocated any portion of the memory is being used to perform any of the I/O operations; monitoring logic coupled to the partitioning logic to determine a time when none of the queue banks that has been allocated any portion of the memory to be removed from the processing partition is being used to perform any of the I/O operations; and return queue logic coupled to the partitioning logic to determine, after a queue bank is used to perform an I/O operation, whether any portion of memory allocated to the queue bank is memory to be removed from the processing partition, and if not, to make the queue bank available for immediate re-use in performing another I/O operation, and otherwise, to delay re-use of the queue bank.