Abstract: A storage management mechanism distributes parity blocks corresponding to multiple data blocks substantially equally among a set of storage devices. N storage units in a set are divided into a multiple of equally sized address blocks, each containing a plurality of records. Blocks from each storage unit having the same address ranges form a stripe of blocks. Each stripe has a block on one storage device containing parity for the remaining blocks of the stripe. Further stripes also have parity blocks, which are distributed on different storage units. Parity updating activity associated with every change to a data record is therefore distributed over the different storage units, enhancing access characteristics of the set of storage devices. The parity updating activity also includes the use of an independent version number stored with each data record and corresponding version numbers stored with the parity record.