1. A processing system configured to implement a distributed storage (DS) managing unit, the DS managing unit comprising: a computing core including associated memory; a network interface configured to couple the DS managing unit to a dispersed storage network (DSN) memory including a plurality of physical sites at which one or more DS units are located, the DS units storing encoded data slices associated with a storage vault having a number of pillars and a read threshold, the number of pillars corresponding to a first number of encoded data slices generated from a particular segment of data, and the read threshold corresponding to a second number of encoded data slices, fewer than the first number of encoded data slices, the second number of encoded data slices corresponding to a subset of the first number of encoded data slices required to reconstruct the particular segment of data; and the computing core configured to assign storage of a particular encoded data slice to a particular DS unit included in the DSN memory based, at least in part, on a pillar associated with the particular encoded data slice, and on a physical site at which the particular DS unit is located.