Reduce potential dataman memory fragmentation

The data manager dynamically allocates relatively small work item blocks
on an as needed basis. It never frees these, instead maintaining then in
a list of available block for reuse when needed. Even if these blocks
are small, the are required at non-deterministic times and can end up
scattered in memory thus causing memory fragmentation. In order to
mitigate this problems work item blocks are allocated in groups of 8 in
contiguous memory to reduce the number of scattered memory allocations.
In reality, based on current usage, rarely will more than one group of 8
be allocated.