A method includes receiving, by a storage driver associated with a storage controller and a corresponding storage array, a data structure associated with an I/O request from a host, wherein the data structure is indicative of a virtual address. A top layer and a RAID core layer of a RAID miniport driver execute asynchronously to perform preprocessing operations including generating a linked plurality of physical I/O (PIO) data structures in accordance with the virtual address and a RAID configuration of the storage array, and storing a pointer to the linked plurality of PIO data structures. A protocol layer of the RAID miniport driver may then be executed synchronously to transfer, in accordance with the linked plurality of PIO data structures, I/O data corresponding to the I/O request between the storage controller and the storage array. Interrupt operations may then be performed synchronously to indicate completion of the I/O request to the host.