A universal mechanism is utilized for data rebalancing in a scaled-out data storage cluster. A value (l) representing a number of erasure coded fragments of each data portion that are to be moved to a newly added node can be calculated. Initially, the number of erasure coded fragments moved per data fragment is determined based on the greatest integer that is less than or equal to l and remainders are accumulated. When accumulated reminders equal or exceed l, the number of erasure coded fragments moved per data fragment is determined based on the lowest integer that is greater than or equal to l. A value of accumulated reminders is then decreased by l. Accordingly, system-level imbalances can be avoided and data availability, data robustness, and/or overall system performance can be increased.