CAD Company I'm supporting started with 3 employees, owner included, and a server that I built for them. Ubuntu 14.04, 18TB raid 6 on an Areca 1224 with WD 3TB reds. Everything has been working great for three years. Built the CAD workstations too. Latest are i7 6850K with 128GB memory, GTX 1080, fast fast fast is the order of the day. Drawings can be 10MB each with 12 other xref drawings attached so loading takes a bit. And sometimes they have two sets of these open at a time to compare, etc. RAM++!
Now they're 20 users though, and we're moving offices. Business is well established so let's spend some money for a core upgrade. I'm looking at Supermicro 1028U-TN10RT+ or 2028U-TN24R4T+. Leaning towards the 2U for storage expandability. They're all flash, Mellanox dual 10Gb, etc. But good night they're expensive. 6x 2TB P3520s will do that I guess. They're using 2.5TB actively right now. Need file server expansion plus other VM storage.
One of my current plans is to have a separate box for vmware that connects to the supermicro via iscsi. Run Freenas with raidZ2 on the SM, all else on vmware. Make new VMs for AD, Windows file server, OPNsense, etc. I know, upside down triangle.
Or, do I just say screw it and have one bad ass HyperV machine with storage spaces? (bleh) I'm much more comfortable with vmware. Maybe 2k16 is better. I'm new to Freenas but I have it successfully working in my home stack on dual 10G. I know Freenas can do SMB, I think I'd rather do it via Windows VM. I could do a chicken in the egg thing with a single box, Freenas VM it and pass the SSDs, but that skeeves me out too.
Or I could build a new box with a Dell R510 12 bay with WD REs or 7K Ultrastors and an Areca 1883 or 9211 and save a ton of money, ie, is all this nvme flash going to really do any good since all the workstations are 1GbE (but a lot of them) anyway? Supermicro 2U is clocking in at $14k, plus I need to charge them sales tax (8.7%) and make a little money myself would be nice.
Now they're 20 users though, and we're moving offices. Business is well established so let's spend some money for a core upgrade. I'm looking at Supermicro 1028U-TN10RT+ or 2028U-TN24R4T+. Leaning towards the 2U for storage expandability. They're all flash, Mellanox dual 10Gb, etc. But good night they're expensive. 6x 2TB P3520s will do that I guess. They're using 2.5TB actively right now. Need file server expansion plus other VM storage.
One of my current plans is to have a separate box for vmware that connects to the supermicro via iscsi. Run Freenas with raidZ2 on the SM, all else on vmware. Make new VMs for AD, Windows file server, OPNsense, etc. I know, upside down triangle.
Or, do I just say screw it and have one bad ass HyperV machine with storage spaces? (bleh) I'm much more comfortable with vmware. Maybe 2k16 is better. I'm new to Freenas but I have it successfully working in my home stack on dual 10G. I know Freenas can do SMB, I think I'd rather do it via Windows VM. I could do a chicken in the egg thing with a single box, Freenas VM it and pass the SSDs, but that skeeves me out too.
Or I could build a new box with a Dell R510 12 bay with WD REs or 7K Ultrastors and an Areca 1883 or 9211 and save a ton of money, ie, is all this nvme flash going to really do any good since all the workstations are 1GbE (but a lot of them) anyway? Supermicro 2U is clocking in at $14k, plus I need to charge them sales tax (8.7%) and make a little money myself would be nice.
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