An efficient coding scheme for correcting triple storage node failures

Abstract—Proper data placement schemes based on erasure correcting codes are one of the most important components for a highly available data storage system. For such schemes, low decoding complexity for correcting (or recovering) storage node failures is essential for practical systems. In this paper, we describe a new coding scheme, which we call the STAR code, for correcting triple storage node failures (erasures). The STAR code is an extension of the double-erasure-correcting EVENODD code, and a modification of the generalized triple-erasure-correcting EVENODD code. The STAR code is an MDS code, and thus is optimal in terms of node failure recovery capability for a given data redundancy. We provide detailed STAR code’s decoding algorithms for correcting various triple node failures. We show that the decoding complexity of the STAR code is much lower than those of the existing comparable codes, thus the STAR code is practically very meaningful for storage systems that need higher reliability. Index Terms—fault tolerance, high availability, error control codes, storage systems.