Embodiments are directed towards managing data storage that may experience a data failure. If a repair event is associated with a data storage failure, a new repair task may be generated and added to a task list. A priority value for each repair task in the task list may be determined based in part on the mean-time-to-data-loss (MTTDL) value associated with each repair task in the task list such that a lower MTTDL may indicate a higher priority value over a lower MTTDL. One or more repair tasks may be promoted to become active repair tasks based on the priority value the repair tasks such that the promoted repair tasks have a higher priority that than other repair tasks in the task list, if any. Each active repair task may be executed to repair one or more associated the storage failures.