Embodiments of the invention relate to correcting erasures in a storage array. A read stripe is received from a plurality of n storage devices. The read stripe includes an array of entries arranged in m rows and n columns with each column corresponding to one of the storage devices. The entries include data entries and mr+s parity entries. Each row contains at least r parity entries generated from the data entries according to a partial maximum distance separable (PMDS) code. It is determined that the read stripe includes at least one erased entry, at most mr+s erased entries and that no row has more than r+s erased entries. The erased entries are reconstructed from the non-erased entries, resulting in a recovered read stripe.