HPE MSA

A SAN requires a dedicated fabric — Fibre Channel switches, HBAs, and the expertise to manage them — which adds cost and complexity that many small and mid-sized environments cannot justify. HPE MSA Storage connects directly to ProLiant servers over iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or SAS using existing infrastructure, with a management interface that walks administrators through setup in minutes. For environments where storage requirements are stable and the team does not include a dedicated storage specialist, MSA delivers shared block storage without the overhead of a full SAN deployment.

The MSA 2060 is a Gen6 model and the MSA 2070 is the current Gen7 model. For new purchases the MSA 2070 is the right choice — it delivers twice the random IOPS and 30% more sequential throughput than the MSA 2060, supports online firmware updates for both controllers and drives without taking the array offline, and scales to over 7PB of raw capacity with expansion enclosures. The MSA 2060 remains relevant as a cost-effective option for environments with existing deployments or tighter budgets where the performance headroom of Gen7 is not required.

In each pairing, the higher-numbered model includes two SSDs and the Advanced Data Services licence pre-installed. The licence unlocks automated storage tiering — where the array automatically moves the most active data onto the SSDs and less active data onto HDDs without any manual intervention — as well as thin provisioning, up to 512 volume snapshots, and remote replication to another MSA array for disaster recovery. The base models (2060 and 2070) support the same features but require the licence to be purchased separately. The 2062 and 2072 are the simpler path for teams that want tiering and replication active from day one.

Most storage systems require an administrator to manually decide which data sits on faster or slower drives, and to periodically review and adjust those decisions as workloads change. HPE MSA Storage monitors which data is being accessed most frequently and moves it to SSDs automatically in real time, without any configuration changes required. For a team without dedicated storage resource, this means the array is self-optimising — the busiest data is always on the fastest media, and the team does not need to intervene as application usage patterns shift.

Traditional RAID uses one or more dedicated spare drives that sit idle until needed, then rebuilds onto them after a failure — a process that can take hours on large drives and leaves the array vulnerable to a second failure during that window. MSA-DP+ distributes spare capacity across all drives in the disk group rather than reserving dedicated spares. When a drive fails, the rebuild draws on small amounts of spare space from every remaining drive simultaneously, making the process up to 25 times faster than traditional RAID. A faster rebuild means the array returns to full protection in a fraction of the time.

Both the MSA 2040 and MSA 2050 support capacity expansion through their respective expansion enclosures, which remain available. For organisations considering an upgrade to a current model, the MSA 2050 supports a data-in-place upgrade to a newer array — existing drives can be retained and reused, protecting the investment already made in storage media. The MSA 2040 does not support the same data-in-place path, so migration requires data movement. Steel City Consulting can advise on the most practical upgrade route for a specific existing deployment. Ask our team about vendor promotions today.