Patent ID: 8462665

Claim:
A system comprising: a plurality of control devices that manage storage locations across a plurality of unaffiliated storage devices in order to provide a reliable network-accessible storage service, wherein the plurality of control devices are operated in a centralized and secure location and configured to: receive registration requests from unaffiliated storage devices hosted by geographically-dispersed entities, each registration request offering to associate an unaffiliated storage device with the network-accessible storage service, the plurality of unaffiliated storage devices associated under terms in which there is no service level guarantee of each of the plurality of unaffiliated storage devices; register the unaffiliated storage devices with the network-accessible storage service; identify available storage space on each of the registered unaffiliated storage devices; and offer access to the identified storage space as a storage service to third parties, the identified storage space offered under terms having a service level guarantee for the storage service.