1. A method of selecting a more fault tolerant erasure code from a plurality of erasure codes for use in a fault tolerant system, comprising: generating a plurality of Tanner graphs corresponding to a plurality of erasure codes; generating a set of preferred erasure codes by discarding an erasure code if the corresponding Tanner graph does not have a predefined characteristic; comparing fault tolerances of the set of preferred erasure codes based at least in part on the corresponding Tanner graphs; and selecting a more fault tolerant erasure code from the set of preferred erasure codes based on the comparison.