A hardware packet accelerator parses incoming packets to retrieve header data for building a frame status and for verifying the incoming packets are part of an established connection with a host. The accelerator includes a connection database that allows retrieval of connection information based on an index constructed from a hashed TCP connection address. The frame status comprises information needed to perform packet re-assembly and is stored in a memory that is local (directly accessible) by a processing device that performs the packet re-assembly. Among other advantages, the processing device does not need to read packet header data from a packet buffer, saving large amounts of header data retrieval time.