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HPE MSA vs IBM XIV 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

HPE MSA
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM XIV
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of HPE MSA is 8.9%, down from 20.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM XIV is 3.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE MSA8.9%
IBM XIV3.6%
Other87.5%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

JT
Manager, Information Technology at a construction company with 201-500 employees
Ensures quick data handling but needs advanced security features
The speed and performance of HPE MSA are admirable. I found that its scalability benefited my organization, especially in larger settings. While the price is not reasonable, its performance makes up for it. Additionally, the licensing costs are consistent with most brands. Compared to Huawei, however, I found that Huawei's processing power, performance, and cost were more advantageous.
Ajith Kandaramage - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Operation Engineer at HNB
Good value for money but issues with modular scaling
IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness I've been using IBM XIV for two and a half years. IBM XIV is stable. IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger…

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 feature for customers is the autonomic tiering, which enhances their storage scalability as easily as possible."
"MSA performs exceptionally well, particularly in regions with frequent power outages."
"So far, our experience with this product has been great."
"The most valuable features are the storage levels and snapshot features."
"The most valuable features are data deduplication and snapshot replication."
"The product is very easy to deploy."
"HPE StorageWorks MSA is an entry-level, cost-effective solution for SMB customers."
"This is a good product and everything I needed it to do, it did and still does."
"Installation is amazingly easy."
"Implementing Remote mirroring and local Snaps is very easy."
"Hands down, this is the easiest storage platform on the market to manage."
"XIV setup is very straightforward and easy to configure."
"IBM XIV is attractive because it gives value for money in terms of features."
"As it spreads, a chuck of 1MB across the board means using all available spindles on the backend."
"IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness."
"The XIVs here are only being used for non-production and dev systems, but still the performance and robustness of the systems are very good."
 

Cons

"Some clients have suggested room for improvement in expanding storage capacity beyond the base traces."
"It's a fairly simple product to set up as well, but it's a little bit more entry level; for those customers that can't afford something larger or whatnot, but would still like to get that shared storage or that SAN functionality."
"I rate HPE support four out of 10. I'm not happy with them. We purchased mission-critical support, and we're supposed to get a response in four hours. Instead, I'm waiting days for them to replace the drive. They asked me to send back the failed one, and I don't know the address. After I sent it back, they told me they haven't received it. It's a nightmare."
"The solution requires hardware."
"The platform’s monitoring capabilities could be enhanced."
"Synchronized replication is very important for MSA; however, HPE StorageWorks MSA doesn't provide synchronized replication."
"The solution's license should be integrated and not separate."
"The support contract is expensive, although they are very responsive."
"Until the drive is replaced, the pool_resizing is locked."
"The change form synchronous mirroring to asynchronous (and vice versa) without reconfiguration from scratch would be helpful."
"Until the drive is replaced, the pool_resizing is locked. This has been an issue a lot of times, especially when the contract says IBM will not replace disks until three drives fail."
"Management accessibility. Both the GUI and the CLI require installation of a Java-based thick client, which is ridiculous, plus a drain on resources."
"This product was not a good fit for our organization as we have a ton of latency sensitive applications and XIV was not able to keep up with IO + latency demand."
"I would rather have a web GUI served directly from the unit, and a CLI accessible directly through SSH."
"I encountered stability (performance) issues during enclosure or disk rebuild. Also some power supply issues due to malfunctions of ​circuits. Sometimes "internal" Snap sessions hang and consume pool capacity."
"I guess we'd like to see the XIV keep pace with how storage is going in terms of speed and latency."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing as nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"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."
"The solution can be a bit expensive."
"This solution involves a one-time CapEx payment, followed by warranty extensions."
"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."
"We have a five-year total cost of ownership where we pay an initial amount and then annually for maintenance."
"No-license-required policy, unlike others where you need a license for everything. Just pay once and forget about licenses."
"If you are going to use the product behind an SVC, IBM will price the units lower, since you are likely not to use any of the advanced copy services."
"Licensing is straightforward."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise7
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your primary use case for HPE StorageWorks MSA?
We use HPE MSA as storage for the VMware servers, and we will try to use Proxmox server later on, but currently, we use VMware.
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

HP StorageWorks MSA
XIV
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Femsa CSC, TTX, Rabobank
Celero, NaviSite, Technische Universit_t Mªnchen, Netflix Inc., Muhr und Bender KG, Pelephone Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE MSA vs. IBM XIV and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.