maximum-distance-separable-code · shipping · also MDS code

Maximum distance separable code

A maximum distance separable code achieves minimum distance n - k + 1 for length n and dimension k, allowing recovery from any n - k known symbol erasures.

Related Observatory article: Maximum distance separable code on hesela.com

Recovery assumes correct surviving symbols and known positions; MDS does not describe their physical placement or integrity validation. See the systematic Reed-Solomon construction and erasure-channel contract in RFC 5510. [1]

Relations

related

reed-solomon-code, erasure-coding, systematic-code, locally-repairable-code, failure-domain

Limitations

• The any-subset guarantee is conditional on the actual code construction, not merely its redundancy count.

Citations

1. Lacan, Roca, Peltotalo and Peltotalo. RFC 5510 (2009), sections 3.1, 8.2-8.4: systematic encoding and the erasure-channel assumption. (accessed 2026-10-13)
2. Plank, Luo, Schuman, Xu and Wilcox-O'Hearn. A Performance Evaluation and Examination of Open-Source Erasure Coding Libraries For Storage. FAST 2009, sections 2, 4-7. (accessed 2026-10-13)

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