Provided are techniques for synchronously performing commit records operations. A local copy of a commit records message is built for a Non-Volatile Storage (NVS) track, with a valid indicator set to indicate that this commit records message is valid and has not been processed yet. A Direct Memory Access (DMA) chain is executed to transfer customer data from a host to real segments and alternate segments of a track buffer and to transfer the local copy of the commit records message to a mail message structure of a mail message array. At DMA completion, an NVS manager is synchronously called to perform a commit records operation with the commit records message in the mail message structure. In response to the commit records operation completing, there is an indication that a new write DMA is allowed to proceed for the NVS track.