HPE MSA SAN Storage offers reliable, flash-ready shared storage for enterprise and data centre deployments. Whether hosting virtual machines, databases, or mixed workloads, MSA combines simplicity, flexibility, and performance with HPE’s industry-leading support.
As a trusted HPE partner, we bring decades of expertise in data storage hardware and solutions. Our team has an extensive technical understanding of HPE’s product portfolio – enabling us to assess, integrate, and optimise solutions for even the most complex or high-demand environments.
Expert guidance for the right fit
We don’t just sell IT hardware. Every HPE solution we recommend is assessed against your specific security concerns, performance requirements, and both current and future infrastructure plans. This consultative approach ensures that our guidance is aligned with your bespoke needs, so that you can invest in new data storage with complete confidence.
Exclusive access and strategic advantages
Through our partnership with HPE, your business will gain access to partner-only promotions, bundled solutions, and live demos. Combined with our technical expertise and ongoing support, this ensures your HPE hardware is secure, cost-optimised, and future-ready.
Expert Data Storage Services
When you buy HPE from Steel City Consulting, you’ll receive expert deployment and maximum benefits. We also provide support in the following specialist areas:
| Our service | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Needs Assessment & Capacity Planning |
+ Full audit of the existing environment (on-premise and cloud) + Performance analysis, usage trends and storage forecasting + Risk and gap assessment aligned to best practices + Capacity modelling with “what-if” scenario testing + Strategic recommendations and prioritised roadmap |
| Managed Backup Services |
+ 24/7 monitoring and proactive management by certified experts. + Full encryption during transmission and storage. + Rapid Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs). + Backup flexibility across servers, devices, cloud workloads, and applications. + Cost-efficient pay-as-you-grow model — only pay for what you use. |
| Storage As a Service (STaaS) |
+ Physical-to-virtual (P2V) migrations + Virtual machine provisioning and configuration + Optimised storage, memory, and CPU allocation + High availability, load balancing, and clustering support |
| Disaster Recovery Services |
+ Complete ransomware protection with full system recovery + Automatic failback and flexible restore options + Disaster recovery infrastructure hosted in secure UK data centres + Choice of fully managed or self-managed disaster recovery services (DRaaS) |
As an official HPE partner, we help enterprises unlock flexible financing options that align IT investment with business goals.
Through HPE Financial Services, we can help your business to:
Unlock smart HPE financing, built for enterprise scale.
Experience smart savings and enhanced sustainability with HPE Renew.
This circular initiative provides top-quality remanufactured HPE hardware, fully-certified and backed by warranty.
Industry-leading quality meets unbeatable value. Upgrade your infrastructure while minimising spend.
As a certified partner, we can unlock exclusive HPE promotions for your business, providing enhanced resilience and efficiency across your network at unbeatable discounts.
When HPE MSA arrays power your infrastructure, that’s just the beginning.
HPE delivers a full spectrum of storage solutions – combining performance, availability, and cloud-native operations. With the right platforms, software, and services, you can create a scalable data strategy built for enterprise demands. Explore HPE service options below.
What is HPE CloudPhysics?
HPE CloudPhysics is a subscription-based SaaS platform, with pricing based on environment size and usage. Utilising deep analytics, CloudPhysics rapidly uncovers performance bottlenecks, capacity gaps, and optimisation opportunities across VMware and hybrid cloud estates.
| Feature | Advantages |
|---|---|
| Workload & VM Analytics | Explore VM configuration, performance, and change history with issue alerts and up to 30 days of visibility. |
| Right-Sizing & Optimisation | Identify overprovisioned workloads, optimise resource allocations, and reduce wasted capacity. |
| Scenario Modelling & Migration Planning | Simulate moves to new infrastructure or cloud, project performance impact, and forecast TCO. |
| Custom Analytics & Dashboards | Build tailored dashboards and metrics (“cards”) for workload-specific insights. |
What is HPE GreenLake?
HPE GreenLake is a subscription-based IaaS model that brings the cloud experience to your enterprise or data centre.
GreenLake delivers HPE hardware, software, and services on-premises or at the edge, granting full visibility and control. With pay-per-use consumption, businesses gain cloud-like agility while retaining the performance and security of on-site infrastructure.
| GreenLake Subscriptions | Features | Advantages |
|---|---|---|
| Flex Solutions | On-demand compute, storage, and networking on a pay-per-use model, with hybrid observability via OpsRamp. | Scale instantly without over-provisioning and monitor hybrid estates in one view. |
| Private Cloud | Self-service or fully managed private cloud with support for VMs, containers, and bare metal. | Secure, compliant, and cloud-native ready — full control with cloud-like agility. |
| AI & Data Analytics | High-density all-NVMe file storage tuned for AI, ML, and large-scale data lake workloads. | Run data-intensive workloads at peak throughput and ultra-low latency. |
| Storage (Block / File / Object) | Alletra Storage MP and GreenLake File Storage with dense NVMe, modular scale-out options. | Match storage type to workload — from transactional databases to unstructured data. |
| Observability & Automation | Consumption analytics, cost reporting, and AI-driven incident detection with automated remediation. | Optimise resources, prevent outages, and streamline IT operations. |
What is HPE OneView?
HPE OneView is infrastructure management software that brings software-defined intelligence to your hardware stack.
OneView centralises server, storage, and networking lifecycle operations—and enables automation through APIs and a unified dashboard.
| OneView Capability | Features | Advantages |
|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle & Firmware Management | Automates firmware updates, firmware compliance tracking, and configuration changes. | Reduces risk, ensures consistency, and cuts overhead costs in large-scale environments. |
| Unified Hardware View | Offers visibility across servers, enclosures, storage arrays, and networking in one console. | Eliminates tool sprawl and lets you see dependencies in real time. |
| Software-Defined API Control | Exposes a RESTful API and infrastructure as code capabilities for provisioning and orchestration. | Enables automation and integration with DevOps pipelines and hybrid cloud tools. |
| Monitoring & Alerts | Tracks health, capacity, and performance with alerts & event logging. | Helps you preempt issues, maintain SLAs, and streamline troubleshooting. |
What HPE OneView licenses are available?
| License Tier | Details |
|---|---|
| Standard | Built-in with many HPE servers/enclosures. Provides basic monitoring, inventory, health status, and limited firmware updates. |
| Advanced | Adds group firmware/driver updates, server profile templates, automation (REST API/Ansible), federation, and deeper lifecycle management. Includes 3 years of support. |
What is HPE Ezmeral?
HPE Ezmeral is a unified software platform for enterprise AI/ML, containerised analytics, and data fabric orchestration across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. It enables frictionless data access, self-service analytics, observability, and scalable infrastructure for modern workloads.
| Features of HPE Ezmeral | Functionality |
|---|---|
| Data Fabric & Unified Access | Persistent, multi-protocol data fabric (NFS, HDFS, object) with seamless access across storage tiers. |
| Self-Service & Portal | Web portal (RBAC) for cluster provisioning, node management, job submission, with REST API capabilities. |
| Service Mesh & Observability | Built-in Istio service mesh, traffic routing, telemetry, microservices observability. |
| 1-Click Provisioning / App Catalog | Prebuilt applications for AI/ML, analytics, DevOps, plus bring-your-own-app support. |
| Decoupled Compute & Storage Scaling | Scale compute and storage independently for flexibility and efficiency. |
| High Availability & Resilience | Multi-level HA options to protect services and data. |
What HPE Ezmeral licenses are available?
| License Tier | Details |
|---|---|
| Term / Subscription License | Capacity-based (vCPU, GPU) term licenses for 1, 3, or 5 years. |
| Analytics / Premium Add-Ons | Optional analytics tiers (e.g. Spark analytics, Analytics Premium) layered above base licenses. |
With so much choice, we strive to bring clarity and precision to our customers’ subscription and licensing decisions.
Our experts will assess your capacity needs, usage patterns, and priorities to prevent overspend or underuse – ensuring your HPE licensing fits perfectly today and scales with you tomorrow.
Talk to a certified HPE expert. We’ll help you choose the right combination of hardware, licenses, and services.
Considering HPE MSA data storage? Our FAQ contains 6 common questions and product comparisons.
Q1. How many hosts can an MSA system support?
MSA host scalability is influenced by the number and type of front-end ports (Fibre Channel, iSCSI, SAS). In practice, these arrays are often connected to dozens of hosts in SAN environments, with capacity determined by switch configuration, zoning, and initiator limits.
Q2. How do the MSA 2060 and 2062 differ in strengths?
| Model | Strengths | Ideal Use Cases |
|---|---|---|
| HPE MSA 2060 |
+ Scales up to 240 SFF or 120 LFF drives with expansion enclosures + Supports hybrid configurations with HDDs + SSDs + Delivers up to ~325K IOPS in performance-optimized setups + Flexible host protocol support (iSCSI, FC, SAS) + Cost-effective entry point with enterprise SAN features |
Best for environments needing flexible growth and balanced performance at a lower cost, or for virtualised workloads where scalable capacity and speed are equal priorities. |
| HPE MSA 2062 |
+ Includes 3.84 TB of embedded flash as standard + Higher IOPS ceiling — up to ~395K in hybrid mode + Advanced tiering automatically optimises between SSD and HDD + Same scale as 2060 but tuned for higher performance and flash acceleration + Strong fit for performance-sensitive workloads |
Ideal for IO-intensive or latency-sensitive workloads (such as databases, VDI, or high-volume VM farms), where consistent speed and tiering efficiency matter more than raw capacity. |
Both the MSA 2060 and 2062 deliver the same core features; MSA-DP+ RAID, snapshots, thin provisioning, and replication. The key difference is scale versus performance: the 2060 offers cost-efficient capacity growth, while the 2062 provides higher flash-accelerated performance.
Q3. What is MSA-DP+ RAID, and how does it work with mixed drives?
MSA-DP+ is a RAID scheme introduced in the 6th generation MSA arrays. It distributes “spare capacity” across all disks, enabling faster rebuilds and better usage of disk capacity. You can mix drives of different capacities (up to a 2× difference) in the same disk group, but significant mismatches (e.g. 6 TB vs 16 TB) are discouraged.
Q4. Does expanding an MSA require downtime?
Drive expansion and enclosure additions in many MSA arrays can be done online without full system downtime. However, during rebuilds or rebalancing, performance may degrade temporarily. HPE recommend planning expansions during low-load windows.
Q5. Does an MSA replace classic backup?
No. While MSA supports snapshots and remote replication, it is not a full backup solution. In catastrophic failure scenarios, you still need off-array backups (e.g. to tape, cloud, or backup software) to ensure recoverability beyond the array.
Q6. Is the MSA series still supported by HPE?
Yes, MSA remains part of HPE’s entry-to-mid-tier SAN portfolio, with ongoing support and software updates. While newer platforms (e.g. Alletra, Nimble) exist, MSA still serves as a cost-effective, reliable SAN solution for many use cases.
