diff --git a/doc/source/deployment_guide.rst b/doc/source/deployment_guide.rst
index a0250fcabe..4289bd15c4 100644
--- a/doc/source/deployment_guide.rst
+++ b/doc/source/deployment_guide.rst
@@ -526,9 +526,10 @@ set log_address                /dev/log               Logging directory
 user                           swift                  User to run as
 max_upload_time                86400                  Maximum time allowed to upload an
                                                       object
-slow                           0                      If > 0, Minimum time in seconds
-                                                      for a PUT or DELETE request to
-                                                      complete
+slow                           0                      If > 0, Minimum time in seconds for a PUT or
+                                                      DELETE request to complete.  This is only
+                                                      useful to simulate slow devices during testing
+                                                      and development.
 mb_per_sync                    512                    On PUT requests, sync file every
                                                       n MB
 keep_cache_size                5242880                Largest object size to keep in
diff --git a/etc/object-server.conf-sample b/etc/object-server.conf-sample
index 6464420ffe..fb9f296b8c 100644
--- a/etc/object-server.conf-sample
+++ b/etc/object-server.conf-sample
@@ -85,7 +85,8 @@ use = egg:swift#object
 #
 # slow is the total amount of seconds an object PUT/DELETE request takes at
 # least. If it is faster, the object server will sleep this amount of time minus
-# the already passed transaction time.
+# the already passed transaction time.  This is only useful for simulating slow
+# devices on storage nodes during testing and development.
 # slow = 0
 #
 # Objects smaller than this are not evicted from the buffercache once read