New storage startup DataGravity claims it can cut the cost of the active processes of storage management – such as protection, search and governance – for data centers by making it simpler.

DataGravity’s storage system Discovery Series, achieves this by automatically analyzing information as it is taken in.

This pre-classification of unstructured data saves time and money and boosts productivity, it claims, by making it easier to use the data constructively.

According to the vendor, this allows data managers to track their data, understand usage patterns, restore content, gain insights into information relevant to their projects and initiatives and identify subject matter experts and potential collaborators.

Datagravity co-founder and president John Joseph said the system is a response to the lack of cohesiveness in data centers.

“Storage infrastructure, layered management applications and siloed processes all need to be managed separately without offering real-time insights, so companies struggle to make use of the data they store and pull insights from it,” Joseph said.

DataGravity Discovery Series is the first system to analyze data at the point of storage, he said.

This will make it cheaper to manage and unlock better value from the information stored, he said.

Discovery Series costs between US$50,000 and US$100,000, with the DG2200 and DG2400 models handling 48TB and 96TB respectively. Joseph said the traditional metrics for evaluating storage – such as the cost per terabyte ($/TB) or input/output operations per second ($/IOPS) - are important but the economics of storage need to be expanded to incorporate the value that’s released from the data.

“In the past, data analytics were an afterthought to storage,” Joseph said.

Black box storage forces companies to hire expensive data science to analyze and extract value, he said.

By making it easier to find and understand that information, DataGravity could save companies the cost of hiring data scientists, which are an expensive human resource, according to Joseph.

The system aims to simplify the search for meaning through an ‘intuitive’ HTML5 graphical user interface, with dashboards dedicated to file analysis, auditing and data access.

“Customers can identify and understand rogue users, storage trends, dormant data, risk exposure and expert identification,” Joseph said.

The Discovery Series will be sold and installed through systems integrators. On August 25, 2014 the vendor is to launch its DataGravity Partner Network.