1. A digital storage system for improving identification of storage system elements responsible for a performance degradation, wherein the digital storage system comprises: one or more digital storage system elements, wherein the digital storage system elements comprise one or more network components, a plurality of digital storage devices, wherein the plurality of digital storage devices are connected by the one or more network components; a database; a memory for storing machine executable instructions, wherein the database comprises one or more predetermined configuration dependency trees and one or more predetermined performance metric dependency trees; and a processor for executing the machine executable instructions, wherein execution of the machine executable instructions causes the processor to: repeatedly record performance metric data descriptive of the performance of the one or more digital storage system elements in the database, wherein the performance data is time dependent, wherein the database stores a system configuration descriptive of connections between the one or more network components and the plurality digital storage devices; receive a performance alert, wherein the performance alert comprises a focus time; construct a focus time window that brackets the focus time; construct an instantiated configuration dependency tree using the system configuration and the one or more predetermined configuration dependency trees, wherein the one or more predetermined configuration dependency trees maps performance relationships between the one or more storage system elements; construct an instantiated performance metric dependency tree using the one or more predetermined performance metric dependency trees and the performance metric data, wherein the performance metric dependency tree maps dependency relationships between the performance metric data; locate outliers in the performance metric data using a statistical algorithm; calculate a problem contribution probability value for at least a portion of the outliers, wherein the problem contribution probability is weighted using the instantiated configuration dependency tree and the instantiated performance metric dependency tree; wherein the problem contribution probability value for an outlier selected from the at least a portion of the outliers is calculated based, at least in part, on a normalized value of the outlier, a weighting value calculated from an instantiated configuration dependency tree and the instantiated performance metric dependency tree, a temporal difference between an acquisition time of the outlier and a focus time, and one or more constants; and determine a sequential list of outliers, wherein an order in the sequential list of outliers is determined using the problem contribution probability value.