diff --git a/conduwuit-example.toml b/conduwuit-example.toml
index 526e9fe2..e2ed5daa 100644
--- a/conduwuit-example.toml
+++ b/conduwuit-example.toml
@@ -1452,7 +1452,7 @@
 # responsiveness for many users at the cost of throughput for each.
 #
 # Setting this value to 0.0 causes the stream width to be fixed at the
-# value of stream_width_default. The default is 1.0 to match the
+# value of stream_width_default. The default scale is 1.0 to match the
 # capabilities detected for the system.
 #
 #stream_width_scale = 1.0
diff --git a/src/core/config/mod.rs b/src/core/config/mod.rs
index b1ede844..bf6a4ba6 100644
--- a/src/core/config/mod.rs
+++ b/src/core/config/mod.rs
@@ -1646,7 +1646,7 @@ pub struct Config {
 	/// responsiveness for many users at the cost of throughput for each.
 	///
 	/// Setting this value to 0.0 causes the stream width to be fixed at the
-	/// value of stream_width_default. The default is 1.0 to match the
+	/// value of stream_width_default. The default scale is 1.0 to match the
 	/// capabilities detected for the system.
 	///
 	/// default: 1.0
diff --git a/src/database/pool.rs b/src/database/pool.rs
index 1560c8b0..11871ff6 100644
--- a/src/database/pool.rs
+++ b/src/database/pool.rs
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ use crate::{keyval::KeyBuf, stream, Handle, Map};
 /// requests which are not cached. These thread-blocking requests are offloaded
 /// from the tokio async workers and executed on this threadpool.
 pub(crate) struct Pool {
-	_server: Arc<Server>,
+	server: Arc<Server>,
 	queues: Vec<Sender<Cmd>>,
 	workers: Mutex<Vec<JoinHandle<()>>>,
 	topology: Vec<usize>,
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ pub(crate) type BatchResult<'a> = SmallVec<[ResultHandle<'a>; BATCH_INLINE]>;
 pub(crate) type ResultHandle<'a> = Result<Handle<'a>>;
 
 const WORKER_LIMIT: (usize, usize) = (1, 1024);
-const QUEUE_LIMIT: (usize, usize) = (1, 2048);
+const QUEUE_LIMIT: (usize, usize) = (1, 4096);
 const BATCH_INLINE: usize = 1;
 
 const WORKER_STACK_SIZE: usize = 1_048_576;
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ pub(crate) fn new(server: &Arc<Server>) -> Result<Arc<Self>> {
 		.unzip();
 
 	let pool = Arc::new(Self {
-		_server: server.clone(),
+		server: server.clone(),
 		queues: senders,
 		workers: Vec::new().into(),
 		topology,
@@ -288,6 +288,7 @@ fn worker_init(&self, id: usize) {
 		.iter()
 		.enumerate()
 		.filter(|_| self.queues.len() > 1)
+		.filter(|_| self.server.config.db_pool_affinity)
 		.filter_map(|(core_id, &queue_id)| (group == queue_id).then_some(core_id))
 		.filter_map(nth_core_available);
 
diff --git a/src/database/pool/configure.rs b/src/database/pool/configure.rs
index 6cac58e7..ff42ef51 100644
--- a/src/database/pool/configure.rs
+++ b/src/database/pool/configure.rs
@@ -1,14 +1,13 @@
 use std::{path::PathBuf, sync::Arc};
 
 use conduwuit::{
-	debug, debug_info, expected,
+	debug, debug_info, expected, is_equal_to,
 	utils::{
 		math::usize_from_f64,
 		result::LogDebugErr,
 		stream,
 		stream::{AMPLIFICATION_LIMIT, WIDTH_LIMIT},
 		sys::{compute::is_core_available, storage},
-		BoolExt,
 	},
 	Server,
 };
@@ -19,39 +18,32 @@ pub(super) fn configure(server: &Arc<Server>) -> (usize, Vec<usize>, Vec<usize>)
 	let config = &server.config;
 
 	// This finds the block device and gathers all the properties we need.
-	let (device_name, device_prop) = config
-		.db_pool_affinity
-		.and_then(|| {
-			let path: PathBuf = config.database_path.clone();
-			let name = storage::name_from_path(&path).log_debug_err().ok();
-			let prop = storage::parallelism(&path);
-			name.map(|name| (name, prop))
-		})
-		.unzip();
+	let path: PathBuf = config.database_path.clone();
+	let device_name = storage::name_from_path(&path).log_debug_err().ok();
+	let device_prop = storage::parallelism(&path);
 
 	// The default worker count is masked-on if we didn't find better information.
-	let default_worker_count = device_prop
-		.as_ref()
-		.is_none_or(|prop| prop.mq.is_empty())
-		.then_some(config.db_pool_workers);
+	let default_worker_count = device_prop.mq.is_empty().then_some(config.db_pool_workers);
 
 	// Determine the worker groupings. Each indice represents a hardware queue and
 	// contains the number of workers which will service it.
 	let worker_counts: Vec<_> = device_prop
+		.mq
 		.iter()
-		.map(|dev| &dev.mq)
-		.flat_map(|mq| mq.iter())
 		.filter(|mq| mq.cpu_list.iter().copied().any(is_core_available))
 		.map(|mq| {
-			mq.nr_tags.unwrap_or_default().min(
-				config.db_pool_workers_limit.saturating_mul(
-					mq.cpu_list
-						.iter()
-						.filter(|&&id| is_core_available(id))
-						.count()
-						.max(1),
-				),
-			)
+			let shares = mq
+				.cpu_list
+				.iter()
+				.filter(|&&id| is_core_available(id))
+				.count()
+				.max(1);
+
+			let limit = config.db_pool_workers_limit.saturating_mul(shares);
+
+			let limit = device_prop.nr_requests.map_or(limit, |nr| nr.min(limit));
+
+			mq.nr_tags.unwrap_or(WORKER_LIMIT.0).min(limit)
 		})
 		.chain(default_worker_count)
 		.collect();
@@ -72,9 +64,8 @@ pub(super) fn configure(server: &Arc<Server>) -> (usize, Vec<usize>, Vec<usize>)
 	// going on because cpu's which are not available to the process are filtered
 	// out, similar to the worker_counts.
 	let topology = device_prop
+		.mq
 		.iter()
-		.map(|dev| &dev.mq)
-		.flat_map(|mq| mq.iter())
 		.fold(vec![0; 128], |mut topology, mq| {
 			mq.cpu_list
 				.iter()
@@ -89,9 +80,12 @@ pub(super) fn configure(server: &Arc<Server>) -> (usize, Vec<usize>, Vec<usize>)
 	// Regardless of the capacity of all queues we establish some limit on the total
 	// number of workers; this is hopefully hinted by nr_requests.
 	let max_workers = device_prop
-		.as_ref()
-		.and_then(|prop| prop.nr_requests)
-		.unwrap_or(WORKER_LIMIT.1);
+		.mq
+		.iter()
+		.filter_map(|mq| mq.nr_tags)
+		.chain(default_worker_count)
+		.fold(0_usize, usize::saturating_add)
+		.clamp(WORKER_LIMIT.0, WORKER_LIMIT.1);
 
 	// Determine the final worker count which we'll be spawning.
 	let total_workers = worker_counts
@@ -102,7 +96,7 @@ pub(super) fn configure(server: &Arc<Server>) -> (usize, Vec<usize>, Vec<usize>)
 	// After computing all of the above we can update the global automatic stream
 	// width, hopefully with a better value tailored to this system.
 	if config.stream_width_scale > 0.0 {
-		let num_queues = queue_sizes.len();
+		let num_queues = queue_sizes.len().max(1);
 		update_stream_width(server, num_queues, total_workers);
 	}
 
@@ -117,6 +111,13 @@ pub(super) fn configure(server: &Arc<Server>) -> (usize, Vec<usize>, Vec<usize>)
 		"Frontend topology",
 	);
 
+	assert!(total_workers > 0, "some workers expected");
+	assert!(!queue_sizes.is_empty(), "some queues expected");
+	assert!(
+		!queue_sizes.iter().copied().any(is_equal_to!(0)),
+		"positive queue sizes expected"
+	);
+
 	(total_workers, queue_sizes, topology)
 }