A system and method for providing multiple disk fault tolerance in an N-column by R-row logical representation of stored elements in an array of N independent disks, R minus 1 being less than N divided by a number of disk failures F, includes assigning each strip containing data to at least F different parity groups so that each strip containing data in a respective column is assigned to parity groups different than other strips containing data in the column. The method also includes calculating, for each parity group, a parity value corresponding to all of the strips assigned to the parity group. The method further includes storing each of the parity values in strips of different columns, so that none of the strips containing data in a column are assigned to a parity group for which the parity value for the parity group is stored in the column.