Explicit MDS Codes for Optimal Repair Bandwidth

Abstract

MDS codes are erasure-correcting codes that can correct the maximum number of erasures for a given number of redundancy or parity symbols. If an MDS code has r parities and no more than r erasures occur, then by transmitting all the remaining data in the code, the original information can be recovered. However, it was shown that in order to recover a single symbol erasure, only a fraction of 1/r of the information needs to be transmitted. This fraction is called the repair bandwidth (fraction). Explicit code constructions were given in previous works. If we view each symbol in the code as a vector or a column over some field, then the code forms a 2D array and such codes are especially widely used in storage systems. In this paper, we address the following question: given the length of the column l, number of parities r, can we construct high-rate MDS array codes with optimal repair bandwidth of 1/r, whose code length is as long as possible? In this paper, we give code constructions such that the code length is (r +1) log_r l.

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