Systems and methods are disclosed for processing a queue associated with a request. An example system includes an input/output (I/O) interface that receives a request associated with a channel. The example system also includes an association module that determines whether a condition is satisfied. When the condition is determined to not be satisfied, the association module, after a hardware device completes processing the request, decrements an in-flight counter that represents a first amount of data in the channel. When the condition is determined to be satisfied, the association module, before the hardware device completes processing the request, decrements the in-flight counter.