Maintaining availability of critical information in a distributed storage network

A computing device comprises:

• at least one interface;
• memory that stores operational instructions;
• and
• a processing module operably coupled to the memory and the at least one interface, wherein the processing module is configured to execute the operational instructions to:
• identify critical information stored in one or more memory devices of a computing device of a storage network, wherein the identifying includes initiating a query and receiving a query response;
• dispersed storage error encode the critical information to produce one or more sets of encoded critical slices;
• select a set of storage units of the storage network;
• and
• facilitate storage of the one or more sets of encoded critical slices in the selected set of storage units.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprises:

• at least one memory section that stores operational instructions that, when executed by one or more processing modules of a storage network, causes the one or more processing modules to:
• initiate a query response to identify critical information stored in one or more memory devices of a computing device of a storage network;
• receive a query response including the critical information;
• dispersed storage error encode the critical information to produce one or more sets of encoded critical slices;
• select a set of storage units of the storage network;
• and
• facilitate storage of the one or more sets of encoded critical slices in the selected set of storage units.