So, with our new VMware solution, I've freed up a physical machine (Dell R710 w/ 8GB RAM). I was thinking about dropping Win2012 and some 4TB SATA drives on it to create an archive server, but cost is around $2700 (4x4TB drives in RAID 10 for 8TB usable storage). The R710 is pushing 4 years old and has a warranty up to 5.
My current archive solution is a Win2003 box w/ a single 2TB (no RAID) SATA HDD. We are using around 1.2TB for archives.
Archives are defined here as the User Profile folder of terminated employees, their mailbox exported to PST, and any other pertinent corporate data that is needed in read-only format.
I'm debating on repurposing the R710 or just repurposing an old workstation w/ Win7 and some desktop 4TB HDDs in a RAID1.
What would you do? I'm a single man shop, so no one to bounce ideas off of. Thanks!