1. A method for execution by one or more processing modules of one or more computing devices of a dispersed storage network (DSN), wherein the DSN includes a plurality of storage units that randomly are active or inactive in the DSN, the method comprises: determining that a set of the storage units has less than a desired number of active storage units; identifying another active storage unit of the storage units that is not currently part of the set of storage units; adding the other active storage unit to the set of storage units; for encoded data stored by the set of storage units: increasing a pillar width number of a dispersed storage error encoding function; maintaining a decode threshold number of the dispersed storage error encoding function; creating new encoded data slices for the encoded data in accordance with the increased pillar width number and the maintained decode threshold number of the dispersed storage error encoding function; and storing the new encoded data slices in the other active storage unit.