Erasure Coding

What Does Erasure Coding Mean?

Erasure coding (EC) is a data protection and storage process through which a data object is separated into smaller components/fragments and each of those fragments is encoded with redundant data padding. EC transforms data object fragments into larger fragments and uses the primary data object identifier to recover each fragment.

Advertisements

Erasure coding is also known as forward error correction (FEC).

Techopedia Explains Erasure Coding

EC is primarily derived from a mathematical equation: n= k + m

Where:

"k" = the original data
"m" = the additional data padding
"n" = the resulting erasure coded data

This same equation can be applied to the data to recover the original amount of data. Erasure coding is primarily used in applications that have a low tolerance for data errors. This includes most data backup services and technologies including disk arrays, object-based cloud storage, archival storage and distributed data applications.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Latest Data Management Terms

Related Reading

Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…