Patent attributes
An erasure resilient coding (ERC) distributed data storage system and method for storing data in a reliable and survivable fashion while minimizing hardware and associated costs. The system and method includes forming multiple protection groups both within and across storage nodes of the storage system. Data is segmented into original data blocks and ERC data blocks. Load balancing occurs by interleaving storage nodes with equal numbers of original data blocks and ERC data blocks while ensuring each node has an equal number of combined read and write operations. Unique read and write operations on data block can be performed independent of other data blocks in a protection group. The write operation uses Galois field arithmetic and ERC transform to either write or append a new data block to a storage node. The read operation recovers data in a variety of ways using ERC decoding.