A network switch for reducing TCP timeouts due to incast collapse is disclosed. The network switch has a plurality of buffers for storing network packets for at least one sender server. An incast buffer management component in the network switch allocates a buffer in the plurality of buffers to store an incast notification packet, the incast notification packet indicating one or more network packets that have been dropped by the network switch. The network switch also includes an incast notification component for forwarding the incast notification packet to a destination server with an incast notification packet specific header.