A system comprises a plurality of computing devices that are communicatively coupled via a network and have a file system distributed among them, and comprises one or more file system request buffers residing on one or more of the plurality of computing devices. File system choking management circuitry that resides on one or more of the plurality of computing devices is operable to separately control: a first rate at which a first type of file system requests (e.g., one of data requests, data read requests, data write requests, metadata requests, metadata read requests, and metadata write requests) are fetched from the one or more buffers, and a second rate at which a second type of file system requests (e.g., another of data requests, data read requests, data write requests, metadata requests, metadata read requests, and metadata write requests) are fetched from the one or more buffers.