Zero-copy buffering of traffic of long-haul links

A network device includes multiple ports, multiple buffer slices, a controller, and buffer control circuitry. The multiple ports are configured to communicate packets over a network. The multiple buffer slices are linked respectively to the multiple ports. The controller is configured to allocate a group of two or more of the buffer slices to a selected port among the ports. The buffer control circuitry is configured to buffer the packets, communicated via the selected port, in the group of the buffer slices, using zero-copy buffering.