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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
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE MSA
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 2.7%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE MSA is 18.3%, up from 18.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE MSA18.3%
Dell EqualLogic PS series2.7%
Other79.0%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

HansThilen - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly scalable and astoundingly stable solution offering its users an extremely good technical support
Regarding an area to improve, I would say that from Dell EqualLogic family, I can't buy Dell EqualLogic PS series. I can't buy any more solutions provided by EqualLogic, so the solution will have to make certain improvements in the future. Since we can't buy anything from EqualLogic in our company, we plan to move to another solution. 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.
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

"Its high availability. It has a lot of redundancy and good management software as well as good alerting."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The product is very stable."
"You can always trust it. It is stable."
"It is extremely reliable."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series is a highly stable solution."
"The technical support for EqualLogic has been universally outstanding."
"The most valuable feature of Dell EqualLogic PS series auto tiering by using this feature, the customer can get higher performance on a valuable budget."
"MSA performs exceptionally well, particularly in regions with frequent power outages."
"The most valuable feature for customers is the autonomic tiering, which enhances their storage scalability as easily as possible."
"The integration with Veeamware, with VAM for backup, is improved with the new version."
"The most valuable features are data deduplication and snapshot replication."
"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."
"It has notably provided scalability benefits."
"HPE MSA is a very flexible array because we can add more enclosures and extend the capacity dynamically."
 

Cons

"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve the performance because in our hybrid configuration the read speed is faster than the write speed."
"Why is it not possible for both controllers to be simultaneously active (load balancing)?"
"There is no option for mixing RAID types in one device."
"The replication efficiency needs to be improved."
"The solution is out of date and the new version has a lot of advanced features."
"Individual file recovery would be a nice additional feature."
"Synchronous replication uses space inefficiently."
"The product is reaching the end-of-lifecycle."
"P2000 has become legacy and we can't find spare parts for it anymore. The life cycle is very low."
"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."
"It would be beneficial to have an add-on feature to improve analytics or insight capabilities inside the app."
"HPE StorageWorks MSA could maybe include a pay-top of texture feature or something like job replication."
"The platform’s monitoring capabilities could be enhanced."
"It would be ideal if there was a better management interface."
"The solution requires hardware."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​It is a fair price."
"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 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."
"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."
"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."
"Licensing is pretty straightforward."
"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."
"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."
"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 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."
"When we bought this solution it was very reasonably priced and they were willing to deal."
"HPE StorageWorks MSA's licensing is perpetual and not integrated."
"I would rate the pricing as nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The solution can be a bit expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise7
 

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?
An improvement that could be made is to have a storage solution with all SSD hard disks, as we currently have a Dell EqualLogic PS series with traditional hard disks. It's not simple to replace a h...
What is your primary use case for Dell EqualLogic PS series?
Dell EqualLogic PS series is the storage of our server, which serves our use case. The deployment of Dell EqualLogic PS series takes about five days.
What do you like most about HPE StorageWorks MSA?
The most valuable feature of HPE StorageWorks MSA is its flexibility.
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.
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...
 

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: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.