No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco MDS Series vs HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco MDS Series
Ranking in Enterprise SAN
4th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000
Ranking in Enterprise SAN
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Public Cloud Storage Services (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Enterprise SAN category, the mindshare of Cisco MDS Series is 10.5%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 is 4.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise SAN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Alletra Storage MP B100004.3%
Cisco MDS Series10.5%
Other85.2%
Enterprise SAN
 

Featured Reviews

VK
Product Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Reliable storage networking has ensured seamless multi-protocol access and continuous redundancy
Currently, I do not have any major suggestions for improvement as everything is working well without issues. If additional functions could be introduced to simplify usage, I would suggest that AI functionality or better integration capabilities would be advantageous for Cisco MDS Series. Any new AI-related features or functionality added to Cisco MDS Series would represent a positive advancement.
reviewer1309695 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure And Systems Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
High‑availability block storage has protected critical research workloads and boosted VMware IOPS
It is difficult to provide specific areas for improvement at this time. We may realize approximately 20% gains in the future, but the previous SAN we used was not very time-consuming, so the improvement is not very significant. We anticipate gains of approximately 10 to 20%. The management interface could be simplified. The cloud console contains two main sections: one for hardware and one for logical volumes on the LUNs being managed. This split is understandable because the hardware console contains HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 for block storage and HPE Alletra for backup, both accessible in the same console. The separation of the SAN hardware console and the backup console is logical and understandable. We have four compute nodes, and the system was not designed to shut down gracefully with only two compute nodes remaining. Running with just one compute node functions properly, and the system continues to operate at reduced capacity. However, when we experienced a crash involving half of the system, HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 failed completely. This behavior is documented as normal in the documentation, but we hoped the block storage could manage to run with half the power. This capability will be available in a future release but is not included in the current version. Our testing before moving to production was not entirely successful, but this aligns with the documented specifications. When we perform failover and data center crash tests, the system performs very well. We have deliberately crashed all four compute nodes, and the secondary storage site manages the workload without any virtual machines malfunctioning. This level of reliability is excellent, and it demonstrates why we selected HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000. Improvements in this area would make the solution even stronger.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of this solution are the devices, databases, and zoning."
"The product is very stable and performs well."
"The stability has been commendable with no major performance issues and the system consistently provides users the ability to access the network without any problems."
"SAN switches in Cisco MDS Series are a valuable feature of the solution for our company."
"This solution is required for any type of IT infrastructure for Storage Networking and provides high availability for storage service."
"MDS's reliability is at a high level, the issues with these switches are extremely rare, and the whole product line is very predictable and stable."
"The most valuable feature of the Cisco MDS Series is its reliability, support, and scalability."
"The features I found most valuable are the ease of deployment, it's easy to upgrade, easy to configure and easy to administer. There is no need for vendor professional services which saves project cost. The usage of WebUI for all primary features like hostname, IP address, SNMP traps, zone sets, addition and deletion of zone members or zone sets, backup of switch DB is very simple."
"The features of HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 that I appreciate the most include the high RAM, which allows us to extract the data quickly, and the GUI, which is much more intuitive than the competitors."
"The features of HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 that I appreciate the most are availability for the company."
"The ability to scale capacity and performance independently has positively impacted my operations regarding performance and capacity."
"HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 enables line-of-business users and database administrators to self-provision storage easily, definitely helps to reduce the time required for storage provisioning and management by around 30%, and supports my sustainability goals by being more compact than 3PAR while enabling deduplication and compression to reduce power, cooling, and rack space needs."
"The ease of use, the reporting, and the setup are excellent."
"Moving to a consumption model is highly desirable from the client side. everyone seems to be moving in that direction."
"HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 is basically a high throughput, high bandwidth solution that provides millions of IOPS, very low latency, and a guarantee of 100% data availability, allowing me to run multiple VMs on that particular storage without any downtime."
"HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 saves time on storage management, making it very simple to manage and monitor the global block storage environment with a single cloud console, and HPE has made it easy for the end user to manage the HPE ecosystem, even providing an on-premises experience almost like that in the cloud."
 

Cons

"I do not have a central management software to manage these products due to the licensing cost. It would be beneficial to have central management software for easier handling."
"I find it difficult to operate and troubleshoot."
"It is quite a stable product. It should be shipped with the latest firmware to avoid download and upload schema at the beginning of the initial setup. There should also be the possibility of downgrading the firmware when required. WebUI needs DCNM instead a web-based GUI should be made available like Brocade san switch."
"Data Center Network Manager is good but it is not free and requires purchasing a separate license."
"The licensing model could be less complicated."
"The product is very expensive."
"Webui needs Data Center Network Management tool licensed copy for accessing Cisco Switches instead a web-based GUI should be made easily available the way Brocade san switch is managed."
"Cisco MDS Series could improve by adding more gigahertz. However, they are doing this over time."
"There is the negative impact of the high price for HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000, which is costly considering economy-related price increases."
"When the system first came out, it had some problems with the Data Center Cloud Console, which made implementation difficult."
"In my opinion, the technical support by HPE is working, but unfortunately, they are quite focused on a break and fix level."
"They take a long time to return the action plan after I send the logs. It takes them one to two days to respond."
"I see some areas that could still be improved."
"HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 could be improved by integrating it with GreenLake, as this would enable us to do end-to-end monitoring across both on-prem and cloud environments better."
"There are areas for improvement in support, and they still have potential to be better."
"It could be a good solution, but the performance and reliability depend on how the hardware is sustained for a longer duration, including the controllers and everything."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's perpetual licensing and maintenance is a recurrent cost."
"The price of the Cisco MDS Series is high."
"Pricing cannot be considered an advantageous trait of the solution since it is expensive. I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise SAN solutions are best for your needs.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Media Company
9%
University
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco MDS Series?
The pricing could be improved as the solution is very expensive. I am on a yearly payment basis.
What needs improvement with Cisco MDS Series?
Currently, I do not have any major suggestions for improvement as everything is working well without issues. If additional functions could be introduced to simplify usage, I would suggest that AI f...
What is your primary use case for Cisco MDS Series?
Cisco MDS Series is primarily used for connecting storage arrays. The multi-protocol feature supports all protocols and functionality working seamlessly. Virtual SANs operate without any issues. Pe...
What needs improvement with HPE GreenLake for Block Storage?
HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 is highly complex. Some of the advanced features like replication are not very easy to set up. If we could do some minor management changes in that area, reporting cou...
What is your primary use case for HPE GreenLake for Block Storage?
I deployed HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 for three or four companies, which included deploying it on iSCSI targets. One customer was using it for Fiber Channel. We also used replication, real-time ...
What advice do you have for others considering HPE GreenLake for Block Storage?
My review rating for HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 is nine point five out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Cisco MDS 9100, Cisco MDS 9222i, Cisco MDS 9700
HPE GreenLake for Block Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Rugby League
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco MDS Series vs. HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.