HPE MSA vs VNX [EOL] comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category. Additionally, 92% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

HPE MSA

Read 26 HPE MSA reviews

1,667 Views
1,650 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

VNX [EOL]

Read 36 VNX [EOL] reviews

87% willing to recommend

HPE MSA

VNX [EOL]

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE MSA and VNX [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Hitachi Vantara and others in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network).

To learn more, read our detailed Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

March 2026

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Helped 884,933 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (5th)

VNX [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

JobyThomas

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.

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Alireza Zabihi

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is scalable and easy to manage."

"The solution is pretty transparent and works well."

"This is a good product and everything I needed it to do, it did and still does."

"We've been very happy with the product, and have had good luck with them as far as not having any issues."

"I like StorageWorks' snapshots for our backup system. We had a pool of SSD and traditional drives. StorageWorks has a feature that transfers the hot data to high-performing drives."

"Easy to manage, it’s reliable for us, and fits our environment."

"MSA performs exceptionally well, particularly in regions with frequent power outages."

"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."

More HPE MSA pros

"The most valuable feature is the auto-tiering, which helps in the speed of data access."

"I really value deduplication and compression to save space."

"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."

"Customer Service: It's great. Technical Support: It's great."

"I really value deduplication and compression to save space."

"Technical support is fast and always fixes the issues."

"Good performance for VM environments"

"Since implementing VNX, we achieved a 10 times increase in the performance for its end users."

More VNX [EOL] pros

Cons

"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."

"Data security features are more important to me than anything else, and I think HPE MSA lacks in this area."

"HPE StorageWorks MSA could maybe include a pay-top of texture feature or something like job replication."

"We had a few issues with some of the firmware codes, probably about five years ago."

"However, we did have some issues at first but we worked through them and currently we have no issues."

"The solution's license should be integrated and not separate."

"GUI can be improved Firmware updates need improvement Hardware could use a little refinement. (The fiber ports on one controller pushed through the case causing us to replace that controller under warranty."

"The support contract is expensive, although they are very responsive."

More HPE MSA cons

"EMC wasn't able to fix the issue, so they had to stop using snapshots."

"The scalability is average because the storage has some hardware limitations and, obviously, operating system limitations."

"You need a lot of licenses in order to use this product, which makes the product expensive; the maintenance contract price also increases significantly every year."

"There is no easy way to defrag a RAID group. It would be nice to be able to reduce the size of a storage pool if the storage is not needed anymore."

"HP EVA and once NetApp, but they both had slow performance and a lack of features so we switched."

"EMC VNX needs to support bigger SSD and the Next Generation EMC Unity does this."

"I do not recommend the Gen 1 VNX to anyone in this day and age."

"Intel Xeon processors with under 2 GHz processing speeds could be replaced with more recent ones."

More VNX [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When we bought this solution it was very reasonably priced and they were willing to deal."

"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."

"This solution is quite expensive; they should lower the cost."

"This solution involves a one-time CapEx payment, followed by warranty extensions."

"The solution can be a bit expensive."

"HPE StorageWorks MSA's licensing is perpetual and not integrated."

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

"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"

"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."

"Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Marketing Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

16%

Media Company

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	23

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.

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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...

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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

NetApp FAS Series vs HPE MSA

Compared 29% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE MSA

Compared 23% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs HPE MSA

Compared 16% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs HPE MSA

Compared 12% of the time

Infortrend ESVA Storage Array vs HPE MSA

Compared 7% of the time

More HPE MSA Competitors

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 38% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 21% of the time

More VNX [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE MSA

March 2026

Download HPE MSA product report

Buyer's Guide

VNX [EOL]

February 2026

Download VNX [EOL] product report

Also Known As

HP StorageWorks MSA

VNX

Overview

Whether you need best-in-class performance or are looking to get the most capacity for your investment, MSA has a fast, affordable solution for you. And every MSA comes with an intuitive setup and management interface anyone can master.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

With EMC VNX you'll have the right blend of flash, capacity, and application-aware software. Scale up storage for midrange workloads, optimized for virtual applications and cloud environments.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Femsa CSC, TTX, Rabobank

Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare

Buyer's Guide

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

March 2026

Download Free Report

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