Virtualize or not?

[Frolix8]

I am setting up a server for a new customer. We have an HP Server with 4 x 2TB space setup on RAID 10. The Server has Windows 2019 Essentials. It’s been several years since I have set up a server as we generally use a Cloud solution for Small business. However, this customer has applications that need to be run off a server and very bad (non-existent) broadband! I see the current best practice seems to Virtualize. However, I have no real experience with this and looking for some advice? Virtualize or not?

 

[Ruklaw]

Yes, virtualize.

There's very little reason not to nowadays. You basically need to have a very good reason to run physical now IMHO.

Hyper-V 2019 is free to use and very full featured.

Time comes to upgrade/replace hardware you can move the virtual server with zero downtime.

 

[Lost-Benji]

I will go with Virtualisation but you need to look at the hardware. RAID-10 will present a 4TB volume that you then need to carve up. Install a paird of SSD's, put Hypervisor on them then run the VM's and host from the SSD array. Create a second VHD on the big array. Don't pass the array directly through to the guest or you will lock yourself to whatever hardware you have (not mentioned in your OP).