Abstract: Skip logic is provided in a storage controller that informs a direct memory access (DMA) context list manager of consecutive ones and zeroes in a skip mask table. The DMA context list manager then manages data counters and location pointers based on the number of consecutive ones and the number of consecutive zeroes. For writes and non-cached reads, the number of zeroes is used to adjust a logical sector address without actually moving data. For cached reads, the number of zeroes is used to adjust the logical sector address and a host address pointer. The DMA context list manager also determines an instruction length based on a number of consecutive ones and issues one or more instructions for each group of consecutive ones and subtracts the instruction lengths from the overall transfer length until the transfer is complete.