A network device for dynamically allocating memory locations to plurality of queues. The network device includes an assigning means for assigning a predefined amount of a temporary memory buffer and a shared memory buffer to each of a plurality of ports and for allocating a fixed allocation of the temporary memory buffer and the shared memory buffer to each of a plurality of queues associated with each port. After each queue has accumulated a predefined portion of data in the temporary memory buffer, the data is transmitted to the shared memory. The means for assigning reduces the shared memory access bandwidth by a predefined amount that is less than a processing bandwidth of a system clock.