Abstract—Reed-Solomon coding is a method of generating arbitrary amounts of checksum information from original data via matrix-vector multiplication in finite fields. Previous work has shown that CPUs are not well-matched to this type of computation, but recent graphical processing units (GPUs) have been shown through a case study to perform this encoding quickly for the 3 + 3 (three data + three parity) case. In order to be utilized in a true RAID-like system, it is important to understand how well this computation can scale in the number of data disks supported. This paper details the performance of a general Reed-Solomon encoding and decoding library that is suitable for use in RAID-like systems. Both generation and recovery are performance-tested and discussed. I.

In this work, I have shown that current parity-based RAID levels are nearing the end of their usefulness. Further, the widely used parity-based hierarchical RAID levels are not capable of significantly improving reliability over their component parity-based levels without requiring massively increased hardware investment. In response, I have proposed k + m RAID, a family of RAID levels that allow m, the number of parity blocks per stripe, to vary based on the desired reliability of the volume. I have compared its failure rates to those of RAIDs 5 and 6, and RAIDs 1+0, 5+0, and 6+0 with varying numbers of sets. I have described how GPUs are architecturally well-suited to RAID computations, and have demonstrated the Gibraltar RAID library, a prototype library that performs RAID computations on GPUs. I have provided analyses of the library that show how evolutionary changes to GPU architecture, including the merge of GPUs and CPUs, can change the efficiency of coding operations. I have introduced a new memory layout and dispersal matrix arrangement, improving the efficiency of decoding to match that