A storage system and method for reducing XOR recovery time are provided. In one embodiment, a storage system is provides comprising a memory and a controller. The controller is configured to generate a first exclusive-or (XOR) parity for pages of data written to the memory; after the first XOR parity has been generated, determine that there is at least one page of invalid data in the pages of data written to the memory; and generate a second XOR parity for the pages of data that excludes the at least one page of invalid data, wherein the second XOR parity is generated by performing an XOR operation using the first XOR parity and the at least one page of invalid data as inputs. Other embodiments are possible, and each of the embodiments can be used alone or together in combination.