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HPE MSA vs VNX [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

HPE MSA
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (3rd)
VNX [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

JT
Manager, Information Technology at a construction company with 201-500 employees
Ensures quick data handling but needs advanced security features
The speed and performance of HPE MSA are admirable. I found that its scalability benefited my organization, especially in larger settings. While the price is not reasonable, its performance makes up for it. Additionally, the licensing costs are consistent with most brands. Compared to Huawei, however, I found that Huawei's processing power, performance, and cost were more advantageous.
AZ
Works at AIT
The Nimble CS-Series has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime
When we started the process of looking for a SAN vendor I had four primary criteria: reliability, performance, cost, and simplicity. We were really looking for a unicorn and were fully expected to have to make compromises in one of those areas. The Nimble CS-Series was recommended by our solutions provider, and we were blown away. Not only was it the most affordable option, but it was the easiest to deploy, had the best performance, and has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Was purchased as a DR solution but became our production SAN, very fast and easy to use, a great SAN for SMB's with enterprise features."
"The solution is scalable and easy to manage."
"The integration with Veeamware, with VAM for backup, is improved with the new version."
"The solution is very easy to use, it is not really complex for any user, such as non-technical individuals."
"So far, our experience with this product has been great."
"This is a good product and everything I needed it to do, it did and still does."
"The most valuable features are the storage levels and snapshot features."
"The most valuable features are data deduplication and snapshot replication."
"Customer service is top-notch with a dedicated sales and technical resource who are familiar with your environment and spend a lot of time understanding your business needs."
"Depending on how simple the customer needs it to be, might sway my recommendation one way or the other, but in terms of functionality, VNX is very very good."
"Technical support is good."
"Since implementing VNX, we achieved a 10 times increase in the performance for its end users."
"The most valuable feature is the tight VMware integration, due to the migration from bare metal to virtualized environments and then on to the cloud."
"One of the best features of the VNX is the ability to combine drives of different types into a virtual Storage Pool. By combining small but fast flash drives, SAS drives, and high-capacity but slower NL-SAS drives, the VNX can intelligently move data to the different tiers of storage based on usage."
"In a banking environment, on which we required a very high throughput for our database, we have used this product and our desired response was received."
"Stability has been rock solid, as we have been running both units for over two years with no major problems."
 

Cons

"I am not satisfied with the licensing model and pricing."
"The solution's license should be integrated and not separate."
"It's a fairly simple product to set up as well, but it's a little bit more entry level; for those customers that can't afford something larger or whatnot, but would still like to get that shared storage or that SAN functionality."
"I rate HPE support four out of 10. I'm not happy with them. We purchased mission-critical support, and we're supposed to get a response in four hours. Instead, I'm waiting days for them to replace the drive. They asked me to send back the failed one, and I don't know the address. After I sent it back, they told me they haven't received it. It's a nightmare."
"The solution could improve by adding configuration tools."
"It should show more options for cloud backup support."
"We faced a lot of challenges with our custom configuration during installation."
"However, we did have some issues at first but we worked through them and currently we have no issues."
"If the VNX had embedded encryption, that would be great."
"Oracle is never the cheaper solution. Compared to others, it is always among the most expensive."
"There were scalability issues, the scalability options are limited due to supported SSD."
"The administrative console (Navisphere/Unisphere) needs some improvement, especially on their Java-based GUI. The updated version of Java is not compatible."
"They may change the disks from NL-SAS to Flash, but it would be costlier for customers."
"It would be very helpful to get an automated report that shows you the size of the checkpoints and get warnings when a checkpoint is reaching either maximum capacity per a file system or hitting the ceiling on the SavVol pool consumption."
"Intel Xeon processors with under 2 GHz processing speeds could be replaced with more recent ones."
"I do not recommend the Gen 1 VNX to anyone in this day and age."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution can be a bit expensive."
"The price of the solution is a little high and they should provide more competitive pricing. If you want to increases the storage size there are additional fees."
"I would rate the pricing as nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"This solution is quite expensive; they should lower the cost."
"HPE StorageWorks MSA's licensing is perpetual and not integrated."
"This solution involves a one-time CapEx payment, followed by warranty extensions."
"When we bought this solution it was very reasonably priced and they were willing to deal."
"Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable, the yearly EMC is more expensive"
"While EMC tends to be on the expensive side, the stability and support of their products are top-notch and I feel are worth the cost."
"Make sure you understand how the licensing works and that you are getting the right set of licenses if you need array-to-array replication."
"Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."
"​Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages​ (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE StorageWorks MSA?
I did not compare the cost of HPE MSA with others because we buy with a framework contract, and HP is the only brand available on that contract, so we have no comparison.
What needs improvement with HPE StorageWorks MSA?
The user web interface is a bit slow, but it is really easy to use, although you still have to wait a bit when you send an operation. We have had some drive failures, but with the redundancy, we ha...
What is your primary use case for HPE StorageWorks MSA?
We use HPE MSA as storage for the VMware servers, and we will try to use Proxmox server later on, but currently, we use VMware.
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

HP StorageWorks MSA
VNX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Femsa CSC, TTX, Rabobank
Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare
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