The Dell VxRail is a VMWare-based hyper-converged infrastructure appliance.
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HPE MSA
Score 9.3 out of 10
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HPE MSA (modular smart array), formerly HP StorageWorks MSA, is a series of storage appliances, from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, a product line built for a modest budget, available as the HPE MSA 2052 hybrid flash array, the HPE MSA 2500 SAN storage appliance, and the MSA 1050 SAN storage.
As Dell EMC VxRail comes as pre-built, the deployment process is simple and easy. It is possible to scale out easily and will get support from the vendor instantly. As it is a Hyperconverged Infrastructure and it is also the integration of Dell EMC hardware and Vmware, the flexibility that VxRail provides is effective. An organization that is looking for all in one place like data management, network management, Integration, and backup software ecosystem can go for this product.
The HPE MSA is best suited for basic SAN requirements. Having dual controllers provides redundancy and allows for firmware upgrades without incurring downtime to the environment. It provides enough IOPS for most workloads be it VMWare or servers requiring storage. For applications such as MS SQL or Exchange, other SAN solutions would be better. Plus the lack of storage snapshot capabilities is also a detriment to the product line. Lack of any reporting capability is also an issue especially when determining workload capabilities.
Firmware upgrades. We have had major issues on two occasions, causing extended downtime. HP was quick to help and resolve, but I am not sure why our simple implementation caused an issue that should have been picked up by testing prior to release. Once was bad, twice painful. The end result is that we purchased a unit solely to test firmware upgrades on, not really great for us!
Support life span. Units go end of life support after around 4 years, a little too short for us.
It is a functioning Replication system for us and checks all the boxes that the auditors are looking for. Further, it is inexpensive and the storage we purchased was cheap. HP has a good reputation in the industry that plays into the decision also.
All of these solutions scored very close together in our testing. Nutanix actually was the highest scoring in ease-of-use, but the integration with Vmware and the pricepoint led us to choose VxRail.
The dual controller configuration of the HPE MSA trumps the Synology DiskStation's single controller configuration. For that alone, I would select the HPE MSA. Without that setup, any controller issue or firmware upgrade is disruptive to the systems the SAN is providing storage to. Furthermore, HPE's support is better than what Synology currently provides. The lack of phone support on Synology's part slows down the troubleshooting of issues compared to HPE. Furthermore, HPE's engineers are able to do a remote session and can work on the problems directly compared to Synology's support.
