What Is Erasure Encoding?
Erasure encoding is a simple and fast method to encode data in a lossless format.
Erasure code offers a failure-free storage environment.
It is a form of information dispersal algorithm that allows data to be distributed across multiple storage devices.
The idea behind erasure coding is simple: rather than writing data to storage in its entirety, it is broken into smaller chunks, which are then used to reconstruct the original data if needed.
Enhancing Data Resilience and Robustness
The main advantage of erasure encoding is that it can be decoded even if some blocks are missing or not received.
It is used in different communication systems to improve the robustness against transmission errors.
What Is the Difference Between RAID and Erasure Encoding?
For some reason, RAID and erasure encoding are mistaken as the same things. In reality, both are pretty different.
RAID is mainly used for servers and other large storage devices. It mirrors your data across multiple hard drives, so if one drive fails, you have a backup.
The downside is that it is more expensive than erasure encoding and utilizes more space on each drive.
RAID doesn’t protect the data on your drives from being read by another computer.
Anyone accessing one of the drives can still see all your information.
Erasure encoding does precisely what it sounds like: It scrambles the data so no one can read it without the right key.
Erasure encoding breaks your data into segments and expands and encodes it with redundant information. On the other hand, data isn’t broken apart in RAID.
Benefits of Erasure Encoding
Erasure encoding is a way of storing data in a reliable manner that can be used to recover the original data should any portion of the storage medium become damaged.
The many benefits of erasure encoding make it an attractive alternative to other data storage methods.
The key features of erasure coding include:
- Scalability: This technique can be applied to small and large data.
- Reliability: Since it keeps only data fragments, the original one can be recovered even if some of the storage media has failed.
- Cost-effective: This technique is cost-effective when considering the cost savings associated with not needing to purchase additional backup and recovery software.
- Speed: The time needed to recover from a single failure is much shorter when erasure encoding is used compared with other methods.