To provide enhanced operation of data storage devices and systems, various systems, methods, and firmware are provided herein. In a first example, a data storage device is presented. The data storage device includes a network interface configured to receive a data stream for storage on a storage medium, the data stream comprising meta data that precedes payload data. The data storage device includes a processing system configured to process at least the meta data when writing the data stream from the network interface to a memory to identify a data gap for the data stream to establish a byte alignment of at least the payload data in the memory. The processing system is also configured to insert the data gap in the memory and store the data stream in the memory.