Enterprise File Server

[adman29]

Hello all, 

 

I'm working on replacing a server at my work, but I'm somewhat out of date -- I haven't done this since like 2017.  I'm needing to setup a new server with at least 30TB of storage for a file storage pool, and then have a VM that runs license managers. I'm needing to do it all via Windows server due to some of the license managers.

 

License managers are pretty lightweight -- they're currently running on a HyperV with 4C, 6GB of RAM and like 90GB storage. What do I need to focus on for the storage server side in terms of specs? All flash these days, or is there a way to still do cache drives in Windows server?

[Electronics Wizardy]

I'd use VMs here. That then separates the license software and allows any host to be used. 

 

Do you have the budget for all flash? What network speed do you need to fill? What is the use case of the file server?

[adman29]

I'm not 100% sure what the budget is, they told me to just quote it. I'm hoping it's around like 30-40K USD

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I'd use VMs here. That then separates the license software and allows any host to be used. 

 

Do you have the budget for all flash? What network speed do you need to fill? What is the use case of the file server?

Right now the current server is on 1GB eth, but I'm wanting to swtich it over to fiber for better speed. The file server hosts individual and department drives. Individual drives are for individuals to store stuff on, and the department drives are for departments to share files.

[AtomicGlargh]

For something that small I would look at iX. At an old job we had a two headed system which ran pretty well. The only issue was that when the HA kicked in, it took just long enough to cause timeout issues. That was 5 years ago with a now 10 or so year old machine, so it has probably improved since then.

https://www.truenas.com/

 

If you have way too much money, Dell PowerScale (formally Isilon). At that same job, our big file server was an Isilon cluster. The thing never had an issue, jank the cable from a node and no one noticed. It had no problem dealing with our complex multi-forest AD setup either (the user mapping is fantastic on these things).

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/storage-servers-and-networking-for-business/sf/powerscale

 

Avoid NetApp, especially if they still use those idiotic proprietary drives.

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

14 minutes ago, adman29 said:

I'm not 100% sure what the budget is, they told me to just quote it. I'm hoping it's around like 30-40K USD

Right now the current server is on 1GB eth, but I'm wanting to swtich it over to fiber for better speed. The file server hosts individual and department drives. Individual drives are for individuals to store stuff on, and the department drives are for departments to share files.

What speed of network would you upgrade to? 
 

That price seems fine so go all flash if you can. You can do cache drives with storage spaces, but why do that if you can afford all flash.

 

I've been pretty happy with super micro so something like this is probably what I'd get here. https://store.supermicro.com/us_en/systems/rackmount/rackmount-1u/1u-up-rack-servers/h13-1u-a-hyper-as-1115hs-tnr.html. Cheapish, 12 NVMe 2.5 slots

[mariushm]

 

I'd still use mechanical drives ... get something like 8-10  10-12 TB  nas/enterprise grade drives, for example 10 TB WD Red Plus (nas, cmr guaranteed etc) is $250 a piece, 12 TB is $350 on Newegg

 

Have them in some 6+2 spare / redundancy , and you'll have around 40-45 TB of disk space between the 6 x 10 TB drives.

 

If you want, add a couple 4 TB  nvme SSDs for the content that's accessed often and fast ... set up a daily job to backup to the slower storage (only dump the differences between previous snapshot and current snapshot so you can revert to any day's content if needed)

 

Mechanical drives tend to tell you when they fail through smart, with SSDs it's often the case they just die on you, can't power up at the next reboot if there's a power failure, or the contents becomes corrupted etc, and it's harder to recover data from them. 

 

Modern mechanical drives can do more than 200-300 MB/s and i doubt individual users will have more than 1 gbps (ok, maybe at most 2.5 gbps) so individual users won't feel the mechanical drives being slow. 

 

You can find server barebone configurations (rackable case + motherboard+ power supplies) with 8 or more 3.5" drives in front that accept either sata/sas or nvme drives. Add your cpu, ram, cooler and you're good to go.

 

example of cheap barebones 

 

older generation with ddr4 registered to be cheaper 

 

https://www.newegg.com/asrock-rack-2u12l2s-rome-2t-supports-amd-epyc-7002-and-7001-series-processors/p/N82E16816775012

 

    2U Rackmount with 800W Redundant PSU (1+1), Low Line: 100-127V, 50/60Hz High Line 200-240V, 50/60Hz
    Support AMD EPYC 7002 and 7003 series Processors
    Support 12 x 3.5" HDD in the front + 2 x internal 2.5" drive bays
    Support 1 x M.2
    Support 8 x DIMMs slots, DDR4 288-pin RDIMM and LRDIMM
    Support 2 x FHFL PCIe x16 + 1 x FHHL PCIe x16 + 1 x FHHL PCIe x8
    Support 1 x OCP 2.0 mezzanine connector A and B (PCIe x16)
    Support 2 x 10 GbE RJ45 + 1 x IPMI Dedicate LAN
    Storage Server

 

This one is only sata bays, but you have pci-e slots and you could put adapter boards to put m.2 drives in those slots. Also comes with dual 10g ethernet from the start.

 

The Epyc 7xxx are cheaper, 8-16 core ones you can get for 3-400$ , 3rd gen with 32 cores or so maybe in the $600-900 range : https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=amd+epyc+7&Order=1

 

 

 

 

[adman29]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

 

I'd still use mechanical drives ... get something like 8-10  10-12 TB  nas/enterprise grade drives, for example 10 TB WD Red Plus (nas, cmr guaranteed etc) is $250 a piece, 12 TB is $350 on Newegg

 

Have them in some 6+2 spare / redundancy , and you'll have around 40-45 TB of disk space between the 6 x 10 TB drives.

 

If you want, add a couple 4 TB  nvme SSDs for the content that's accessed often and fast ... set up a daily job to backup to the slower storage (only dump the differences between previous snapshot and current snapshot so you can revert to any day's content if needed)

 

Mechanical drives tend to tell you when they fail through smart, with SSDs it's often the case they just die on you, can't power up at the next reboot if there's a power failure, or the contents becomes corrupted etc, and it's harder to recover data from them. 

 

Modern mechanical drives can do more than 200-300 MB/s and i doubt individual users will have more than 1 gbps (ok, maybe at most 2.5 gbps) so individual users won't feel the mechanical drives being slow. 

 

You can find server barebone configurations (rackable case + motherboard+ power supplies) with 8 or more 3.5" drives in front that accept either sata/sas or nvme drives. Add your cpu, ram, cooler and you're good to go.

 

example of cheap barebones 

 

older generation with ddr4 registered to be cheaper 

 

https://www.newegg.com/asrock-rack-2u12l2s-rome-2t-supports-amd-epyc-7002-and-7001-series-processors/p/N82E16816775012

 

    2U Rackmount with 800W Redundant PSU (1+1), Low Line: 100-127V, 50/60Hz High Line 200-240V, 50/60Hz
    Support AMD EPYC 7002 and 7003 series Processors
    Support 12 x 3.5" HDD in the front + 2 x internal 2.5" drive bays
    Support 1 x M.2
    Support 8 x DIMMs slots, DDR4 288-pin RDIMM and LRDIMM
    Support 2 x FHFL PCIe x16 + 1 x FHHL PCIe x16 + 1 x FHHL PCIe x8
    Support 1 x OCP 2.0 mezzanine connector A and B (PCIe x16)
    Support 2 x 10 GbE RJ45 + 1 x IPMI Dedicate LAN
    Storage Server

 

This one is only sata bays, but you have pci-e slots and you could put adapter boards to put m.2 drives in those slots. Also comes with dual 10g ethernet from the start.

 

The Epyc 7xxx are cheaper, 8-16 core ones you can get for 3-400$ , 3rd gen with 32 cores or so maybe in the $600-900 range : https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=amd+epyc+7&Order=1

 

 

 

 

I know this is easily done in linux, but if I'm using Windows server would the 4+2 hot spare be something I'd do via the RAID controller?

[adman29]

2 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What speed of network would you upgrade to? 
 

That price seems fine so go all flash if you can. You can do cache drives with storage spaces, but why do that if you can afford all flash.

 

I've been pretty happy with super micro so something like this is probably what I'd get here. https://store.supermicro.com/us_en/systems/rackmount/rackmount-1u/1u-up-rack-servers/h13-1u-a-hyper-as-1115hs-tnr.html. Cheapish, 12 NVMe 2.5 slots

I was thinking about moving it up to 10G fiber so there's bandwidth from multiple users using it at once.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, adman29 said:

I was thinking about moving it up to 10G fiber so there's bandwidth from multiple users using it at once.

That should be able to easily fill 10gbe. I've used sim

 

NVMe drives are about the same prices as SAS/SATA so might as well go all NVMe, but price it out to see if there are a big savings.

[AtomicGlargh]

20 hours ago, adman29 said:

I know this is easily done in linux, but if I'm using Windows server would the 4+2 hot spare be something I'd do via the RAID controller?

ReFS (Storage Spaces) supports this. It will also do self-healing and the lot.

[dogwitch]

vm all the way. now if it anything related to billing or payment etc. that itself gets its own server .

[adman29]

On 2/12/2026 at 12:53 PM, AtomicGlargh said:

ReFS (Storage Spaces) supports this. It will also do self-healing and the lot.

Perfect! I'll look into this. Thanks

[adman29]

On 2/13/2026 at 11:33 AM, dogwitch said:

vm all the way. now if it anything related to billing or payment etc. that itself gets its own server .

Lol yeah no it's mostly just file storage. Not going to out what I work in but it's for storing personal and department files. Nothing too mission critical on it

 

[dogwitch]

2 hours ago, adman29 said:

Lol yeah no it's mostly just file storage. Not going to out what I work in but it's for storing personal and department files. Nothing too mission critical on it

 

ah then good then.

you doing battery back up right?

like if it runs 400 watts. get a 200 watt more battery back up. also label date it was installed(also save model number of battery to order online later)