A system, comprising: one or more computing devices of a network of a client site; one or more storage devices of the network of the client site; a plurality of shippable storage devices provided by a remote storage provider , wherein the plurality of shippable storage devices are attached to the network of the client site; and a data transfer tool implemented on at least one of the one or more computing devices of the client site, wherein the data transfer tool is configured to: identify data stored on the one or more storage devices to be imported by the remote storage provider ; apply a redundancy encoding technique on the identified data to generate a plurality of shards ; determine a subset of the plurality of shards to import into the remote storage provider based on a minimum number of shards required to reconstitute data stored among the plurality of shards ; and transfer different shards of the subset of the plurality of shards to different ones of the plurality of shippable storage devices prior to shipment of the plurality of shippable storage devices for import of the identified data by the remote storage provider (102; 1612; 1614); wherein the data transfer tool is further configured to: prior to the transfer of the different shards, encrypt the different shards using one or more encryption keys . one or more computing devices of a network of a client site; one or more storage devices of the network of the client site; a plurality of shippable storage devices provided by a remote storage provider , wherein the plurality of shippable storage devices are attached to the network of the client site; and a data transfer tool implemented on at least one of the one or more computing devices of the client site, wherein the data transfer tool is configured to: identify data stored on the one or more storage devices to be imported by the remote storage provider ; apply a redundancy encoding technique on the identified data to generate a plurality of shards ; determine a subset of the plurality of shards to import into the remote storage provider based on a minimum number of shards required to reconstitute data stored among the plurality of shards ; and transfer different shards of the subset of the plurality of shards to different ones of the plurality of shippable storage devices prior to shipment of the plurality of shippable storage devices for import of the identified data by the remote storage provider (102; 1612; 1614); wherein the data transfer tool is further configured to: prior to the transfer of the different shards, encrypt the different shards using one or more encryption keys . identify data stored on the one or more storage devices to be imported by the remote storage provider ; apply a redundancy encoding technique on the identified data to generate a plurality of shards ; determine a subset of the plurality of shards to import into the remote storage provider based on a minimum number of shards required to reconstitute data stored among the plurality of shards ; and transfer different shards of the subset of the plurality of shards to different ones of the plurality of shippable storage devices prior to shipment of the plurality of shippable storage devices for import of the identified data by the remote storage provider (102; 1612; 1614); wherein the data transfer tool is further configured to: prior to the transfer of the different shards, encrypt the different shards using one or more encryption keys . <EOS>