number then GCD algorithm provides affinity towards odd number erasure sets to provide for uniform distribution across nodes*. This is to ensure that same number of drives are pariticipating in any erasure set. For example if you have 2 nodes with 180 drives then GCD is 15 but this would lead to uneven distribution, one of the nodes would participate more drives. To avoid this the affinity is given towards nodes which leads to next best GCD factor of 12 which provides uniform distribution.

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