Producing Recovered Data in a Storage Network

A processing system comprises:

• at least one processor;
• and
• a memory that stores operational instructions, that when executed by the at least one processor, cause the processing system to perform operations that include:
• issuing read slice requests to storage units of a set of storage units, where the read slice requests identify at least a read threshold number of encoded slices of a set of encoded slices corresponding to a data segment;
• when less than the read threshold number of encoded slices are received within a time threshold, facilitating receiving a decode threshold number of encoded slices of the set of encoded slices;
• decoding the decode threshold number of encoded slices to produce recovered encoded data slices, wherein a number of the recovered encoded data slices corresponds to the read threshold number minus a number of the encoded slices received within the time threshold;
• and
• outputting the recovered encoded data slices and the encoded slices of the read threshold number of encoded slices received within the time threshold.