Embodiments of the invention are directed to systems and methods for optimizing data access request handling in a non-volatile memory (NVM) device. In one embodiment, the device may include a number of storage elements that can be concurrently programmed, and the device may include a controller that determines whether data access requests may be staged and processed together so that the concurrency of the storage device may be optimized. In one embodiment, staged requests are selectively combined together so that their combined data size is greater than or equal to a data size that can be programmed in a single set of concurrent operations to the storage elements.