A mapping area including a packet work area and a corresponding set of packet segment registers are provided. A packet segment register is loaded with a Packet ID (PID) and a packet translation unit maps packet data into the corresponding packet work area. Packets include one or more data buffers. Data buffers are chained together using a corresponding buffer descriptor for each data buffer. Each buffer descriptor points to the corresponding data buffer and to a next buffer descriptor. Each buffer descriptor includes an offset for a next packet data. A translate address is compared to the offset of each buffer descriptor to identify the data buffer containing the translate address. A buffer sharing counter (BSC) is allocated for a shared data buffer. Each buffer descriptor pointing to the shared data includes a pointer to the buffer sharing counter (BSC).