DETECTION AND CORRECTION OF COPY ERRORS IN A DISTRIBUTED STORAGE NETWORK

A method begins by one or more processing modules of one or more computing devices of a dispersed storage network (DSN) receiving a delete data request for a data object of a set of data objects, where each data object of the set of data objects has substantially identical data to other data objects of the set of data objects and where only one plurality of sets of encoded data slices corresponding to one data object of the set of data objects is stored in memory of the DSN. The method continues with the one or more processing modules determining whether the data object is associated with a data ID and when the data object is associated with a data ID, identifying linking information associated with the data object. Linking information is updated to indicate that the set of data objects includes one fewer copy of the data object and then it is determined whether the Data ID is associated with a link-object and when the Data ID is associated with a link-object the link-object is deleted from the DSN memory.