Examples disclosed herein relate to a storage appliance using an optimistic allocation of storage space. In an example system, a number of storage drives are coupled to a storage controller and an RNIC (remote direct memory access (RDMA) network interface card (NIC)) through a storage network. The RNIC includes a layout template selector and a number of templates, wherein the layout template selector selects a template based, at least in part, on a logical block address (LBA) received from a host. The template identifies each of the plurality of storage drives associated with portions of data represented by the LBA.