Erasure coding

Data is split into fragments plus parity fragments, so it survives the loss of several disks while using far less space than full copies. Object stores use it to reach extreme durability cheaply.

Where it shows up in real systems

  • Object storage

    Practically unlimited capacity and eleven nines of durability, but each request takes tens of milliseconds and throughput is limited per key prefix. Put a CDN in front for public files; infrequent-access classes are cheaper to store but charge per retrieval.

    In production: Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, Cloudflare R2, MinIO

See it break, then fix it

Build an architecture, send it a day of traffic and outages, and learn why it holds or fails. Free to start.

Open the learning path Open the sandbox