Improving performance in solid state devices (SSDs) by controlling or throttling the depth of the request queue. In one implementation, a method includes monitoring a request queue in a solid state device (an SSD), the request queue comprising a first request and a second request having an actual time interval therebetween, determining a queue depth for the request queue, determining a target interval based on the queue depth and a target queue depth, and responsive to the actual time interval being less than the target interval, delaying acting on the second request until after the target interval.