Systems and methods for managing locks in a data acquisition system with a distributed data storage are disclosed. In embodiments, a storage node of a data acquisition system with a plurality of storage nodes receives a request for an unprocessed event, where portions of the event data are stored across the plurality of storage nodes. One node of the plurality of nodes holds the lock value for the event. The node receiving the request searches for an event where it stores the lock value that is unlocked. If none is found, the node receiving the request forwards the request to a second node, which repeats the search.