diff --git a/app/vmselect/netstorage/netstorage.go b/app/vmselect/netstorage/netstorage.go
index fa751f5666..0f381d7f97 100644
--- a/app/vmselect/netstorage/netstorage.go
+++ b/app/vmselect/netstorage/netstorage.go
@@ -1449,8 +1449,8 @@ func (snr *storageNodesRequest) collectResults(partialResultsCounter *metrics.Co
 type storageNode struct {
 	connPool *netutil.ConnPool
 
-	// The channel for limiting the maximum number of concurrent queries to storageNode.
-	concurrentQueriesCh chan struct{}
+	// The number of concurrent queries to storageNode.
+	concurrentQueries *metrics.Counter
 
 	// The number of RegisterMetricNames requests to storageNode.
 	registerMetricNamesRequests *metrics.Counter
@@ -1750,14 +1750,8 @@ func (sn *storageNode) execOnConnWithPossibleRetry(funcName string, f func(bc *h
 }
 
 func (sn *storageNode) execOnConn(rpcName string, f func(bc *handshake.BufferedConn) error, deadline searchutils.Deadline) error {
-	select {
-	case sn.concurrentQueriesCh <- struct{}{}:
-	default:
-		return fmt.Errorf("too many concurrent queries (more than %d)", cap(sn.concurrentQueriesCh))
-	}
-	defer func() {
-		<-sn.concurrentQueriesCh
-	}()
+	sn.concurrentQueries.Inc()
+	defer sn.concurrentQueries.Dec()
 
 	d := time.Unix(int64(deadline.Deadline()), 0)
 	nowSecs := fasttime.UnixTimestamp()
@@ -2457,7 +2451,7 @@ func InitStorageNodes(addrs []string) {
 			// There is no need in requests compression, since they are usually very small.
 			connPool: netutil.NewConnPool("vmselect", addr, handshake.VMSelectClient, 0),
 
-			concurrentQueriesCh: make(chan struct{}, maxConcurrentQueriesPerStorageNode),
+			concurrentQueries: metrics.NewCounter(fmt.Sprintf(`vm_concurrent_queries{name="vmselect", addr=%q}`, addr)),
 
 			registerMetricNamesRequests:    metrics.NewCounter(fmt.Sprintf(`vm_requests_total{action="registerMetricNames", type="rpcClient", name="vmselect", addr=%q}`, addr)),
 			registerMetricNamesErrors:      metrics.NewCounter(fmt.Sprintf(`vm_request_errors_total{action="registerMetricNames", type="rpcClient", name="vmselect", addr=%q}`, addr)),
@@ -2488,9 +2482,6 @@ func InitStorageNodes(addrs []string) {
 			metricBlocksRead:               metrics.NewCounter(fmt.Sprintf(`vm_metric_blocks_read_total{name="vmselect", addr=%q}`, addr)),
 			metricRowsRead:                 metrics.NewCounter(fmt.Sprintf(`vm_metric_rows_read_total{name="vmselect", addr=%q}`, addr)),
 		}
-		metrics.NewGauge(fmt.Sprintf(`vm_concurrent_queries{name="vmselect", addr=%q}`, addr), func() float64 {
-			return float64(len(sn.concurrentQueriesCh))
-		})
 		storageNodes = append(storageNodes, sn)
 	}
 }
@@ -2513,9 +2504,6 @@ var (
 	partialSearchResults                 = metrics.NewCounter(`vm_partial_results_total{type="search", name="vmselect"}`)
 )
 
-// The maximum number of concurrent queries per storageNode.
-const maxConcurrentQueriesPerStorageNode = 100
-
 func applyGraphiteRegexpFilter(filter string, ss []string) ([]string, error) {
 	// Anchor filter regexp to the beginning of the string as Graphite does.
 	// See https://github.com/graphite-project/graphite-web/blob/3ad279df5cb90b211953e39161df416e54a84948/webapp/graphite/tags/localdatabase.py#L157