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

1,547 Views
1,532 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, Hitachi Vantara, IBM and others in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network).

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

Buyer's Guide

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

January 2026

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Helped 881,707 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) (4th)

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 pretty transparent and works well."

"The solution is scalable and easy to manage."

"The simple configuration feature is great. It is very simple, allowing you to set up MSA very easily."

"It has notably provided scalability benefits."

"The most valuable features are the storage levels and snapshot features."

"The most valuable feature of HPE StorageWorks MSA is its flexibility."

"The product is very easy to deploy."

"The most valuable features are data deduplication and snapshot replication."

More HPE MSA pros

"Multi-tiering, positively affects the efficiency of the storage space."

"The replication feature provides another functionality to protect your data."

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

"It is very stable even during multiple power failures."

"From my point of view, the configuration that I can sell is restricted to the EMC best practices. It is hard to make a mistake in a solution. It means the configuration has good performance and scalability options."

"It is very stable, even during multiple power failures."

"FAST (auto-tiering): Doesn't require configuration and is managed by the array itself."

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

More VNX [EOL] pros

Cons

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

"Synchronized replication is very important for MSA; however, HPE StorageWorks MSA doesn't provide synchronized replication."

"The solution requires hardware."

"Some clients have suggested room for improvement in expanding storage capacity beyond the base traces."

"There is room for improvement in terms of scalability. There are times when we need to upgrade the device and the firmware. Sometimes, that can be a struggle."

"HPE should reintroduce customizable ports as they were in Gen 5, allowing customers to use both iSCSI or SC on a single controller."

"P2000 has become legacy and we can't find spare parts for it anymore. The life cycle is very low."

"It should show more options for cloud backup support."

More HPE MSA cons

"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."

"Based on our workloads, we see repeatedly in performance reports that the built-in controller (SP) cache of our VNX model is not sufficiently large, resulting in forced cache flushing."

"Poor connection to FC."

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

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

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

"There is an easy replication process between distinct data centers via VPLEX and/or RPA. But I hope in the future that EMC/Dell could replicate this with other types of storage."

"The management software used for the VNX is Unicenter. While it is an improvement over Navicenter, used in older EMC SANs, it still feels outdated in comparison to other SAN management software."

More VNX [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

"I would rate the pricing as nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

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

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

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

"The solution can be a bit expensive."

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

"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable, the yearly EMC is more expensive"

"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. 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."

"Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead."

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Government

No data available

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

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Compared 30% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE MSA

Compared 21% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs HPE MSA

Compared 17% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs HPE MSA

Compared 14% of the time

Infortrend ESVA Storage Array vs HPE MSA

Compared 6% of the time

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HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 100% of the time

More VNX [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE MSA

January 2026

Download HPE MSA product report

Buyer's Guide

VNX [EOL]

January 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)

January 2026

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