Abstract: A system and method is disclosed for distributed storage management. The system discloses: an item storage device, including a set of items: an item identification module, for collecting raw data from the set of items located within the item storage device; a processing module, proximate to the item storage device, for summarizing a predetermined subset of the raw data; a memory module, for storing selected system data; and a communications module, for transmitting the summarized data. The method of the present invention discloses: collecting raw data from a set of items located within an item storage device; summarizing a predetermined subset of the raw data with a processing module proximate to the item storage device; storing selected system data; and transmitting the summarized data.