HPE MSA Reviews

• Data progression!
• Volume draining.
• Dual controllers.

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.

• 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.

3 months and going very well.

Old interface has no progression. New interface does. Nothing spells this out and needed to be discovered.

None. Very stable product.

None. Running 7k drives and 10K drives with SSD caching.

Very good.

Dell Compellent SAN. Shelves were going on 6 years old. Switching to 3PAR but needed a temporary space.

Very easy and straightforward.

In-house. Very easy to install.

We use HPE StorageWorks MSA for normal servers and as a storage utility.

The cost to performance for HPE StorageWorks MSA is good.

The one feature we value most about HPE StorageWorks MSA is stability.

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

The prices are low. HPE StorageWorks MSA is better than other products.

I would rate HPE StorageWorks MSA eight over 10 because just for our use it is okay.

Our company uses the solution for NAS and SAN storage. We have 30 users who access storage daily. 

We do not plan to increase usage in the short term but plan to do a technology refresh in a few years. 

The solution is pretty transparent and works well. 

The solution requires hardware. 

I have been using the solution for a few years. 

The stability is okay, not too bad. The solution has a very specific use to provide storage so as long as it does not fail, everything is good.

The solution is scalable and you can add additional bays. At some stage, you will need additional TCs.

I have not needed technical support. 

Our company did not previously use another solution. 

The setup is pretty straightforward. 

The solution is hardware so you just have to build the functions of the system including the RAID. It takes a little while, but is straightforward. 

We utilize vendors or system integrators for implementations. 

The solution can be a bit expensive. I rate pricing an eight out of ten. 

I inherited the last generation solution when I joined the team, but am currently looking to move toward hyper-converged solutions. In essence, I want to reduce the footprint and maximize the server.

I am exploring whether HCI can work with the current hardware and reduce the need for additional hardware by using local storage on the server. I want to understand the technology to do a proper comparison. 

I am looking at StorMagic and other options to determine how they reduce the SAN or distribute storage in the ESXI environment. 

The solution is a capable product that does what it is supposed to do. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

The price point's really good for us. At our remote locations, we've been putting MSAs from 1st generation all the way up to the 2040's. We've been very happy with the product, and have had good luck with them as far as not having any issues.

Price is the biggest thing right now. The performance is fine. We use a SAS attached for the MSAs, and it's just been a good product for us.

Maybe a few more feature sets with snapshots and application, and things like that. That's been coming with the 2040's, so they're slowly adding that in. I understand for what I'm paying for, your not getting all the features, but I see they're coming down from there, maybe with some of those feature sets.

We had a few issues with some of the firmware codes, probably about five years ago. Other than that, it's been a rock-solid system for us.

Dell and EMC, as there's not a lot of smaller vendors. It's a niche that the MSA is in, as far as the price and performance, and there's not a lot of competitors out there on that.

As far as setup and stuff like that, it's very easy to set up. You've got the different RAID levels that you need to use. I'm sure the other products have that too, so it comes down to what feels right for you.

Easy to manage, it’s reliable for us, and fits our environment. Also, support is available when we need it. It’s just been very solid for us.

We’re down to one vendor for most of our hardware and software, so using HP already helps us streamline our internal workings.

In the future we'd like to see more block-based storage. This is because more and more storage is moving in that direction.

Very stable.

For our environment, you can scale several times and that’s exactly what we need. You can’t go beyond four servers for the SaaS connected version, but for us that’s what we needed exactly.

Technical support on the phone is fine and storage has been very good overall.

We’re like an ASP. HP has been the standard we’ve been using for a while, so we continued. Their SaaS connected storage is what we’ve been using more recently because it fits our environment perfectly.

Very straightforward and we’ve got about eight of these setup. We had it delivered to the site and just plugged it in for the customer.

We also looked at Dell, but HP was a better fit and the pricing was better.

Look at reliability primarily. Pricing is also important.

Experience with the interface is very important. Make sure that technical support is available and good. Again, it's about performance and cost and it does a rock solid job for us.

We use HPE StorageWorks MSA as our central storage for our VMware clusters.

The solution is very easy to use, it is not really complex for any user, such as non-technical individuals. We have found it simple to guide our customers when needed. The interface is user-friendly and it is not difficult to configure.

The solution could improve by adding configuration tools.

I have been using HPE StorageWorks MSA for approximately 10 years.

The solution is stable.

I have found the solution to be scalable.

We have approximately 20 customers using this solution.

The support engineers are knowledgeable and resposive.

The installation is straightforward. The time of the installation depends on the environment. However, it typically takes less than one hour.

We use three HPE engineers that do the implementation of the solution.

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.

This is an entry-level storage system and I would recommend it to others.

I rate HPE StorageWorks MSA an eight out of ten.

Relating to MSA storage, the simple configuration feature is great. It is very simple, allowing you to set up MSA very easily.

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

I have been using HPE StorageWorks MSA for roughly 15 years.

It's designed for small businesses, not for a large enterprise. The enclosures are enough for this amount of storage. With the sixth generation, we can have nine enclosures and add them to a base chassis.

The scalability could be improved, but it's enough for a small business. If you have a large business, you should opt for HPE Primera or Nimble.

I haven't had to call HP technical support because I am an HP expert and I can set up any HP storage by myself. We have a team of five engineers who handle all maintenance-related issues.

Deployment out-of-the-box until the final configuration took roughly 15 to 30 minutes.

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

HPE OneView is a better solution for managing and monitoring MSA. You can't add MSA Storage to OneView. We can add OneView, but we can't add MSA Storage to OneView for monitoring and management.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give HPE StorageWorks MSA a rating of eight. If they improved the central management and lowed the price, I would give it a higher rating.