1. A method comprises: receiving, by a computing device, a write request intended for one or more storage units of a dispersed storage network (DSN), wherein the write request is for data segment that has been encoded to produce a set of encoded data slices; storing the write request in memory; creating a write intent associated with the write request, wherein the write intent includes information about storage of the set of encoded data slices; determining whether metadata associated with the write request can be successfully updated; when the metadata associated with the write request can be successfully updated, deleting the write intent associated with the write request; when the metadata associated with the write request cannot be successfully updated, maintaining the write request in memory until a cleanup agent can execute the write request; and executing the write request using the write intent associated with the write request.