A storage system includes: a control processor, configured to: read user data with a read threshold, detect an uncorrectable error in the user data, detect a sector balanced when the number of 1's and 0's in the user data is within the difference stored in a range register, apply an XOR RAID recovery to correct the uncorrectable error in the user data; and a non-volatile memory array, coupled to the control processor, configured to store the user data; and wherein the control processor is further configured to forego an additional read of a sector N with a different value of the read threshold when the sector balanced initiates the XOR RAID recovery.