Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems divide data into a plurality of portions such that the data is recoverable using a subset of the plurality of portions. For each portion of the data, a storage device different than storage devices storing all other portions of the data is selected. The selecting of storage devices includes distributing the portions of data based upon diversity of geographic locations of storage devices and diversity of storage device characteristics. The storage device characteristics include at least one of hardware characteristics, software characteristics, and operating history characteristics. Each portion of the data is stored on a corresponding selected storage device.