HPE MSA vs. StarWind SAN & NAS

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.

Incentivized

StarWind is best suited for the integration and deployment part and for the storage part as well. The product is budget-friendly and helps us to improve business agility. Can't think of negative scenarios as of now.

Incentivized

• Functions well as a disaster recovery cluster repository
• Since the space is a spinning disk, it is inexpensive
• All of our VMs are stored in a mass storage repository on the system, but we could carve out specific LUNs if needed.

Incentivized

• Ease of Deployment
• Management interface
• Documentation and support
• performance

• 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.

Incentivized

• Can improve documentation.
• Can more focus on user training.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We chose StarWind SAN & NAS over Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct because it was more flexible to configure.

Incentivized

• Increased up time. Better user experience.
• Good value for money. ROI high.
• Peace of mind. Just knowing that you rely on the solution to meet storage performance needs is great.

Incentivized

• Allowed us to go all flash for 1/5 the cost
• Boosted end user experience due to high iops on flash
• lowered expenses on arrays and licensees