One embodiment includes data communication apparatus including a storage sub-system to be connected to storage devices, and processing circuitry to manage transfer of content with the storage devices over the storage sub-system responsively to content transfer requests, while pacing commencement of serving of respective ones of the content transfer requests responsively to availability of spare data capacity of the storage sub-system, find a malfunctioning storage device currently assigned a given data capacity of the storage sub-system and currently assigned to serve at least one content transfer request, and reallocate the given data capacity of the storage sub-system currently assigned to the malfunctioning storage device for use by at least another one of the storage devices while the at least one content transfer request assigned to be served by the malfunctioning storage device is still awaiting completion by the malfunctioning storage device.