I am researching the best way to find a single server solution to do many things. The context of this would be a small business, but may have some higher power needs for only a few individuals. I need to provide file management (NAS), wifi/network management, firewall, Windows VMs (PCI Passthrough for video), and security cameras.
Goals:
1. Purchase one good high performance server. Lots of power to grow on.
2. Minimal, or NO subscriptions for software.
3. Will pay for a hypervisor or other software if it is only one time fee. And they wont kill you with CPU/core count. ($1,000 MAX)
Current Server Hardware as my testbed: HPe DL380 sff Xeon Gold 5218, 32GB RAM, HBA P408a-i controller, 5x Seagate 1.8T SAS2 drives, 2x SSDs, Nvidia GTX 1080
What it needs to do:
1. The easy things that need to be done that can be done via simple Linux VMs, or Dockers. (I have had all of these working).
- Unifi Controller (Wifi/Network)
- Unifi Protect (Security Cameras)
- pfSense (firewall)
2. File NAS - This is the difficult part.
Options considered:
VMWare ESXi as OS
- Fantastic VM management, passthrough works with consumer video cards. (Verified working on my system)
- FreeNAS forum experts do not like the idea of installing in a hypervisor. (It works, but probably not deployable in production environment). I did get this working, but the stability is still in question.
FreeNAS as OS
- Great NAS software. Probably nothing better. (as long as it is the base OS of your server)
- I never did get a VM to work. I'm sure it does, but it doesnt seem using them for much more than the simple Linux
ProxMox - Investigating this now.
- Looks to be a good base OS for the simple VMs,
- Looks like it will do the higher performance VMs needed with PCI passthrough. (Need to verify).
- I'm still checking if you can create a share. I have successfully created ZFS pool, but have not found how to actually create shares that can be used, and backed up to other NAS.
If anyone has any experience with what I am doing, I would like to hear some advice. I am trying to find something I can provide a small business or non-profit that can get a single capital budget for hardware, and meet all of their needs in a single, inexpensive to maintain box. And, of course, be hired to manage it for them.
Thoughts?
Thank you!
Goals:
1. Purchase one good high performance server. Lots of power to grow on.
2. Minimal, or NO subscriptions for software.
3. Will pay for a hypervisor or other software if it is only one time fee. And they wont kill you with CPU/core count. ($1,000 MAX)
Current Server Hardware as my testbed: HPe DL380 sff Xeon Gold 5218, 32GB RAM, HBA P408a-i controller, 5x Seagate 1.8T SAS2 drives, 2x SSDs, Nvidia GTX 1080
What it needs to do:
1. The easy things that need to be done that can be done via simple Linux VMs, or Dockers. (I have had all of these working).
- Unifi Controller (Wifi/Network)
- Unifi Protect (Security Cameras)
- pfSense (firewall)
2. File NAS - This is the difficult part.
Options considered:
VMWare ESXi as OS
- Fantastic VM management, passthrough works with consumer video cards. (Verified working on my system)
- FreeNAS forum experts do not like the idea of installing in a hypervisor. (It works, but probably not deployable in production environment). I did get this working, but the stability is still in question.
FreeNAS as OS
- Great NAS software. Probably nothing better. (as long as it is the base OS of your server)
- I never did get a VM to work. I'm sure it does, but it doesnt seem using them for much more than the simple Linux
ProxMox - Investigating this now.
- Looks to be a good base OS for the simple VMs,
- Looks like it will do the higher performance VMs needed with PCI passthrough. (Need to verify).
- I'm still checking if you can create a share. I have successfully created ZFS pool, but have not found how to actually create shares that can be used, and backed up to other NAS.
If anyone has any experience with what I am doing, I would like to hear some advice. I am trying to find something I can provide a small business or non-profit that can get a single capital budget for hardware, and meet all of their needs in a single, inexpensive to maintain box. And, of course, be hired to manage it for them.
Thoughts?
Thank you!