A method for managing storage devices includes obtaining a storage device cluster request, and in response to the storage device cluster request: obtaining a set of storage device telemetry entries associated with a plurality of storage devices, performing a telemetry normalization on the storage device telemetry entries to obtain a set of normalized entries, performing a pairwise evaluation on the set of normalized entries to obtain a set of initial storage device clusters, wherein a storage device cluster in the set of initial storage device clusters comprises a portion of the plurality of storage devices, performing a cluster re-evaluation on the set of initial storage device cluster groups to obtain a set of updated storage device clusters, updating a backup policy based on the set of updated storage device cluster groups, and performing a backup operation on a storage device based on the backup policy.