Patent ID: 8904194

Claim:
A method for securely storing and retrieving data, the method comprising: generating, using an electronic computing system that includes processing circuitry, a plurality of shares by performing a cryptographic operation on a data set and distributing the data set in the plurality of shares such that the data set can be reconstructed using any subset of the shares that includes at least a minimum number less than all of shares; storing the plurality of shares at a plurality of storage devices; receiving, at the electronic computing system, request to retrieve the data set; identifying from the plurality of storage devices a set of fastest-responding storage devices necessary to retrieve the minimum number of shares, wherein the set of fastest-responding storage devices are identified based at least in part on the response time of the storage devices; retrieving from the set of fastest-responding storage devices, the minimum number of shares; reconstructing the data set using the minimum number of shares; and sending the data set responsive to the request.