A method may include storing data in one or more first-type stripes spanning a plurality of N storage resources and having N−1 data strips for storing the data and a parity strip for storing parity information for the data stored to the particular first-type stripe and each of the plurality of storage resources includes one of a data strip or a parity strip of the particular first-type stripe if the data to be stored exceeds a threshold size. If the data to be stored does not exceed a threshold size, the method may include storing the data in a second-type stripe and a third-type stripe each spanning N storage resources, such that each stripe comprises N−1 data strips for storing the data and a metadata strip for storing address information for the corresponding second-type strip or third-type strip.