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Dell EqualLogic PS series vs HPE MSA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

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

Dell EqualLogic PS series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE MSA
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 1.8%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE MSA is 19.2%, up from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Abdul Rehman Abid - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful auto tiering, excellent support, and highly reliable
The initial setup of the Dell EqualLogic PS series is simple. The physical connectivity and rack mounting time depend on the size of the deployment. For example, if we have five of the Dell EqualLogic PS series we can mount and do the cabling within two hours. The initial configuration can be done within an hour. The estimated time to deploy from start to finish in this scenario is four to five hours maximum. One person can do most of the deployment, such as configuration, but a helper is needed to do the mounting of the cables.
Pragnesh Sachania - PeerSpot reviewer
Scalable, easy to manage, and used for virtualization environments
We didn't face any issues with the technical functionality. However, we faced a lot of challenges with our custom configuration. The HPE support person who did the installation was very technical. He answered all the queries, and we resolved the entire setup. We set up the storage as per our requirements. We previously used a physical server instead of virtualization. With the help of an HPE engineer and partners, we prepared a strategy for migrating the entire physical servers to our virtualization infrastructure. It took two days to deploy the solution. Six people were involved in the solution's deployment, including two from HPE and four from our IT team.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Dell EqualLogic PS series is a highly stable solution."
"Dell's technical support is very good."
"​It has contributed to the implementation of virtualization and all its benefits.​"
"You can always trust it. It is stable."
"The product is very stable."
"The technical support for the solution was really good."
"Its high availability. It has a lot of redundancy and good management software as well as good alerting."
"Technical support, when we had access to it, was very good."
"The product is very easy to deploy."
"The solution is scalable and easy to manage."
"Monitoring is a very big thing. Other great features include block storage; volume creation and the data reliability scalability, which makes the solution really good."
"The simple configuration feature is great. It is very simple, allowing you to set up MSA very easily."
"The solution is pretty transparent and works well."
"The most valuable features are the storage levels and snapshot features."
"It has notably provided scalability benefits."
"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."
 

Cons

"It is at the end of support and no longer supported. We have to move our VMware to another storage platform, and we have decided to use Dell PowerStore. We like Dell's products, and it is a new platform with a lot of features."
"There is no inline deduplication capability."
"The product is reaching the end-of-lifecycle."
"I can't buy any more solutions provided by EqualLogic...Since I can't buy it anymore, I don't receive any updates on the solution. Also, this is the last year in which one can buy support for the solution."
"If I need to have more space or more capacity, I need to replace the product. It would be ideal if we could scale without replacing the box itself."
"Synchronous replication uses space inefficiently."
"6510 and 6610 have two iSCSI connections in each controller. Why do 6110xxx members have only one, and why do the same members have the possibility of having an active iSCSI interface in the passive controller? It could make a lot of noise with a failover."
"The replication efficiency needs to be improved."
"It should show more options for cloud backup support."
"We faced a lot of challenges with our custom configuration during installation."
"The support contract is expensive, although they are very responsive."
"Synchronized replication is very important for MSA; however, HPE StorageWorks MSA doesn't provide synchronized replication."
"HPE should reintroduce customizable ports as they were in Gen 5, allowing customers to use both iSCSI or SC on a single controller."
"The solution requires hardware."
"This product is getting a little bit older, so new features like deduplication are not included."
"The solution's license should be integrated and not separate."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I didn't buy it. It was another person seven years ago. So, I don't really know, but all storage platforms cost a lot of money. It is probably in the mid-range, but you get what you pay for."
"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series can improve its scale-out feature. Sometimes the customer has a limited budget for storage expansion. When they want to expand their capacity, they need to buy a complete controller plus storage capacity, which sometimes is out of their budget. If Dell EqualLogic PS series support could scale up the environment in which only hard drive extension controllers should be supported, then customers can expand within a lower budget."
"Price-wise, the solution is cheap. I rate it a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."
"I don't think I would say that the product is less expensive...The product's price is not an issue for our company, considering the relationship we have with Dell and the customer support we receive."
"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."
"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."
"Licensing is pretty straightforward."
"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."
"This solution involves a one-time CapEx payment, followed by warranty extensions."
"I would rate the pricing as nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is 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."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"HPE StorageWorks MSA's licensing is perpetual and not integrated."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Educational Organization
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EqualLogic PS series?
The technical support for the solution was really good.
What needs improvement with Dell EqualLogic PS series?
The main issue was that when there were new storage solutions technologies available on the market, Dell EqualLogic PS Series was not compatible with the latest products. Right now, we have a stora...
What is your primary use case for Dell EqualLogic PS series?
I used the solution in my company since we had a virtual infrastructure, which served as our storage array with ESXi connections, which are also integrated with VMware solutions.
What do you like most about HPE StorageWorks MSA?
The most valuable feature of HPE StorageWorks MSA is its flexibility.
What needs improvement with HPE StorageWorks MSA?
It needs more details on how to integrate with the cloud for backup scenarios. It should show more options for cloud backup support.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

EqualLogic PS series
HP StorageWorks MSA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FAW Foundry, AW Engineering, Unimat, eLongNet Information Technology, BDO Brasil, Odyssey Space Research
Femsa CSC, TTX, Rabobank
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. HPE MSA and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
841,431 professionals have used our research since 2012.