VMWare ESXi + NAS + Windows how?

Question

NAS

I want to make a NAS server out of an old system unit, but at the same time I want to use Windows on it at the same time. Are there any solutions for such usage?
Now there is an ssd drive with Windows and a 2TB hard drive. How and where to install what?

Answer 1

What does ESXi have to do with it? 2Tb is not a NAS, but ... how to say so, so as not to be offended?

Answer 2

It is not very clear what exactly you need from ESXi, since it does not appear in your text in any way.
And so, of course, you can open Samba access to a folder on your hard drive, for example, for backups.
Well, connect applications that will record or read something there.
Then you will be able to use Windows and your hard drive will be available to applications as storage.
Of course, not all applications will work, but it works.

Answer 3

here, Hyper-v will help, or any hypervisor that you run from under Windows. Only question - what for is it necessary? What is required from the NAS and how is it planned to use Windu?

Answer 4

I would put ESXi on a flash drive from which it will boot, the systems themselves (Windows and a system for NAS on SSD), virtual disks for storing information on the HDD. But as already mentioned above, it would be optimal to install Windows directly on the SSD, and there is already a NAS on Hyper-V. Again, it all depends on the amount of RAM, since ESXi itself eats up about 2 GB. For the option with it, you need from 8 GB of RAM.