A backplane management and configuration system includes a chassis housing a first storage system having a first backplane, a second storage system having a second backplane, a second computing device coupled to each of the first backplane and the second backplane via a second multiplexer and a communication bus, and a first computing device coupled to each of the first backplane and the second backplane via a first multiplexer and the communication bus. A backplane configuration/management subsystem in the first computing device detects a multi-computing-device configuration including the first and second computing devices in the chassis and, in response, determines a first computing device location in the chassis. Based on the first computing device location, the backplane configuration/management subsystem identifies a first backplane identifier for the first backplane and, in response, configures the first backplane for management by the backplane configuration/management subsystem and ignores the second backplane.