Existing MSA environments may still support active workloads even as newer platforms are introduced. Replacing systems prematurely can increase cost and risk. HPE MSA Legacy Models address this by supporting continuity for installed systems with compatible hardware and components.
Within established infrastructures, MSA Legacy Models maintain availability for existing workloads. This avoids unnecessary refresh cycles and allows planned upgrades on a controlled timeline.
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| Model | Popularity | Target Organisation Size | Primary Use Case | Latency Tier | Scalability Model | Architecture Type | Maximum Raw Capacity | Maximum Expansion Shelves | NVMe Support Level | Controller Cache | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
HPE MSA 2040 Storage Array
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★ ★ ★ | Midmarket | General Purpose Storage | Balanced | Scale-Up | Dual-Controller Active-Active | 3.9 PB | 7 | None | 8 GB | View |
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HPE MSA 2050 Storage Array
|
★ ★ ★ | Midmarket | General Purpose Storage | Balanced | Scale-Up | Dual-Controller Active-Active | 3.9 PB | 7 | None | 8 GB | View |
Data centre teams extend existing storage environments where continuity with deployed systems is required. HPE MSA 2040 and 2050 enclosures support these deployments by expanding capacity within established storage platforms.
Healthcare providers maintain imaging, patient records, and operational systems where existing storage platforms must be retained. HPE MSA 2040 and 2050 enclosures support these environments by adding capacity to clinical storage systems already in use.
Retail organisations continue to operate regional and reporting systems where storage platforms remain in place. HPE MSA 2040 and 2050 enclosures support these environments by extending storage capacity for ongoing business operations.
Enterprise teams manage storage costs while maintaining existing infrastructure where full replacement is not required. HPE MSA 2040 and 2050 enclosures support these deployments by extending the lifecycle of deployed storage systems.
Development teams run secondary workloads and test environments where existing storage platforms are reused. HPE MSA 2040 and 2050 enclosures support these environments by providing additional capacity for non-production systems.
Manage HPE storage alongside your servers and networking from a single, unified interface. OneView’s template-driven approach standardises storage provisioning, eliminates manual configuration errors, and surfaces firmware compliance gaps across your entire estate. Full API integration means storage workflows slot directly into your existing automation and DevOps pipelines — cutting provisioning time and reducing the operational burden on your team.
Ask us about HPE OneViewInfoSight’s AI continuously analyses telemetry from your HPE storage environment, correlating data across global deployments to predict and resolve issues before they cause downtime. Performance bottlenecks, capacity trends, and hardware anomalies are identified automatically — giving your team actionable intelligence rather than alerts to chase. Organisations consistently report a dramatic reduction in unplanned outages and time spent on storage troubleshooting.
Ask us about HPE InfoSightAs an authorised HPE partner, we’re here to help your organisation select, configure, and manage the right combination of platforms and services to efficiently scale and support your new solution long-term. Contact our HPE specialists for guidance today.
Backed by decades of expertise in the IT sector, our specialists support every stage of your deployment — from initial selection through to long-term lifecycle management.
The MSA 2040 supports up to seven additional enclosures — either its own LFF 12-drive shelf or the D2700 SFF 25-drive enclosure — reaching a maximum of 96 LFF or 199 SFF drives across the full system. The MSA 2050 supports up to seven additional enclosures using its own LFF or SFF shelves, scaling to a maximum of 96 LFF or 192 SFF drives. Both systems allow LFF and SFF enclosures to be mixed freely, so teams are not locked into a single drive size when adding capacity. Disk groups can span across enclosures on both platforms, meaning new drives contribute to pool performance rather than sitting as isolated capacity.
Both the MSA 2040 and MSA 2050 support hot-add expansion — enclosures are cabled in and recognised by the array without taking the system offline. Once the array scans the backend and identifies the new drives, capacity can be incorporated into existing storage pools. The MSA 2050 also supports non-disruptive online controller code upgrades, provided multipathing software is in use on the connected hosts, which means firmware maintenance does not have to coincide with a capacity expansion event. The one condition to confirm before expanding is that self-encrypting drive configurations require all drives in the system — including those added to new enclosures — to be SEDs; introducing a standard drive into an encrypted system disables encryption across the entire array.
Both the MSA 2040 and MSA 2050 support RAID levels 1, 5, 6, and 10 for virtual storage disk groups. The MSA 2040 also supports RAID 0, 3, and linear vdisk configurations for specific use cases. Hard drive counts per RAID level are capped — RAID 1 is limited to two drives per disk group, while RAID levels 5, 6, and 10 support up to 16 drives each. This means that on large, multi-enclosure configurations, capacity is distributed across multiple disk groups rather than a single large RAID set, and those disk groups are then aggregated into storage pools. Capacity added via expansion enclosures contributes to the pool and delivers the performance benefit of additional spindles — relevant for teams running HDD-heavy configurations where throughput scales with drive count.
Both platforms support mixed SSD, Enterprise SAS, and Midline SAS configurations within the same array. On MSA 2050 arrays with virtual storage enabled, the automated tiering engine moves frequently accessed data to the fastest available media — so adding an SSD-populated enclosure creates a higher-performance tier that the system uses automatically for hot data, without the team having to manually manage which workloads land on which drives. Adding HDD capacity extends the pool at lower cost per terabyte and is suited to workloads with predictable, sequential access patterns. The MSA 2040 supports tiering in a similar way once firmware GL200 or later is in place and virtual storage is configured.
Snapshot and replication capabilities on the MSA 2040 and MSA 2050 are controller-based features that operate at the volume level, independent of how many enclosures the underlying storage pool spans. Both systems come standard with 64 snapshots, with a 512-snapshot licence available as an option. The MSA 2050 supports remote replication between MSA arrays via Fibre Channel or iSCSI using Remote Snap, which replicates changed blocks asynchronously to a second array — local or remote. Expanding the system’s physical capacity does not affect snapshot or replication configuration; volumes continue to behave as before, and new capacity added to a pool is available to existing volumes through thin provisioning without requiring snapshot policies to be reconfigured.
The MSA 2050 LFF and SFF enclosures are confirmed compatible with MSA 2040 arrays, which matters to teams that have already invested in 2050 shelves and are running a mixed install. However, Gen6 and Gen7 drive options — those used in the MSA 2060 and 2070 ranges — are not backward compatible with Gen4 or Gen5 systems, so drive procurement for MSA 2040 and 2050 expansions must use the correct MSA generation of media. Within either system, SSDs, Enterprise SAS, and Midline SAS drives can be mixed in the same enclosure without restriction, but SED configurations require consistency across the entire array — all drives must be self-encrypting for encryption to remain active.
If these options aren’t the right fit for your environment, we provide a wide portfolio of product series and solutions that may better suit your infrastructure. Explore below, or speak to our team and we’ll help you find the right match.
Whether you know exactly what you need or you’re still evaluating options, our team is available for a no-obligation conversation.
