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HPE MSA vs VNX [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

HPE MSA
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (5th)
VNX [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Pragnesh Sachania - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 8, 2024
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.
RS
Apr 18, 2018
​The VNX 5700 provides a large number of features including the ability to work for both file and block as a unified array.
Once you establish a replication job, when the file system is synchronizing its data to the target file system, it tends to create a balloon effect where it creates a file system that grows as the new data is synchronizing. It would be very helpful if the replication job could incorporate a self-cleaning job after the synchronization job completes to reduce the size of the file system in the target automatically. Very often, we have to run a script called “SavVolReclaim” to clean up space consumed while the replication is in progress. If the replication job hits its maximum capacity of 16TB while synchronizing, it stops the replication job. By adding this reclaim process natively, it would eliminate additional unnecessary work for the storage administrators. 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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"HPE StorageWorks MSA is an entry-level, cost-effective solution for SMB customers."
"The cost to performance for HPE StorageWorks MSA is good."
"The solution is pretty transparent and works well."
"The most valuable feature of HPE StorageWorks MSA is its flexibility."
"The most valuable features were the dual controllers and being able to expand it."
"The simple configuration feature is great. It is very simple, allowing you to set up MSA very easily."
"The product is very easy to deploy."
"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."
"I really value deduplication and compression to save space."
"Multi-tiering, positively affects the efficiency of the storage space."
"Integration with VMware"
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-tiering, which helps in the speed of data access."
"FAST (auto-tiering): Doesn't require configuration and is managed by the array itself."
"It is very stable even during multiple power failures."
 

Cons

"The solution's license should be integrated and not separate."
"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."
"The solution could improve by adding configuration tools."
"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."
"It would be ideal if there was a better management interface."
"HPE StorageWorks MSA could maybe include a pay-top of texture feature or something like job replication."
"Poor connection to FC."
"Intel Xeon processors with under 2 GHz processing speeds could be replaced with more recent ones."
"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."
"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."
"The scalability is average because the storage has some hardware limitations and, obviously, operating system limitations."
"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."
"The administrative console (Navisphere/Unisphere) needs some improvement, especially on their Java-based GUI. The updated version of Java is not compatible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When we bought this solution it was very reasonably priced and they were willing to deal."
"I would rate the pricing as nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"HPE StorageWorks MSA's licensing is perpetual and not integrated."
"This solution involves a one-time CapEx payment, followed by warranty extensions."
"This solution is quite expensive; they should lower the cost."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"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"
"​Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages​ (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead.​"
"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."
"Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
We faced a lot of challenges with our custom configuration during installation. At the time of deployment, there was some communication gap between my partner and HPE.
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Comparisons

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Also Known As

HP StorageWorks MSA
VNX
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

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