I'm a junior network engineer setting up infrastructure for a company with roughly 30–50 users. The business works with large media files and video storage, so network throughput, storage performance, and organization matter. The planned stack includes a firewall, managed switch, Windows Server, and a 12-bay Synology NAS populated with four 12 TB drives.
Before installing the equipment, I'd appreciate advice on two design decisions:
1. Since Windows Server is the immediate requirement, should I install a type 1 hypervisor such as Hyper-V or Proxmox VE and run Windows Server as a virtual machine, or should Windows Server be installed directly on the hardware?
2. There are four departments. Should each department receive its own VLAN, or would a simpler VLAN design be more appropriate for a company of this size?
The current network is planned around 1 GbE, although the company handles large file transfers. I'd also appreciate recommendations for storage layout, virtual machine disks, backups, and future scalability.
5 Answers
The NAS can work well as shared storage and a backup target, but don’t let it become the only copy of important files. With four 12 TB drives, choose a redundancy layout based on capacity, rebuild risk, and required performance, then keep another copy offline or at a separate location. If the media workflow is storage-heavy, validate the NAS performance with realistic file sizes before finalizing the design.
Pay close attention to the storage and network bottlenecks. If the server, NAS, and switch are all limited to 1 GbE, large media transfers will quickly hit that ceiling. Two 1 GbE links do not automatically provide one user with 2 Gb/s; link aggregation usually helps multiple simultaneous connections, but a single transfer may still use only one link. If the workload justifies it, 10 GbE between the main storage, server, and switch could be a much better long-term investment. Measure actual throughput and storage IOPS instead of assuming the network is the only limitation.
I’d virtualize the server rather than install Windows directly on the hardware. Hyper-V is a natural choice if you already have suitable Windows Server licensing and expect the environment to stay Windows-focused. Proxmox is also a valid option and can be cost-effective, especially if you’re comfortable managing Linux-based virtualization. Either approach gives you easier backups, snapshots, recovery, and the ability to add more virtual machines later without rebuilding the host.
I hadn’t considered Hyper-V in detail, so I’ll compare its licensing, support options, and management experience with Proxmox before deciding.
For virtual machines, keeping the operating-system disk separate from the data disk is a useful pattern. It lets you restore or reinstall the OS without having to move the application data as well. Make sure snapshots aren’t treated as backups, and test restoring both the VMs and the NAS data. Also plan for power protection, monitoring, configuration backups, and a recovery process before putting the system into production. Vendor support hours and licensing costs should be checked carefully, especially if the business depends on the server.
Don’t create VLANs just for the sake of having one per department. A practical small-business design might separate trusted user devices, servers, guest Wi-Fi, management interfaces, and possibly IoT or building systems. Department-specific VLANs can make sense if the departments need different firewall rules or access restrictions, but they usually won’t improve file-transfer speed by themselves. Keep the initial design understandable and leave room to expand later.
The important part is defining the access rules between VLANs and making sure management interfaces aren’t exposed to ordinary clients. Segmentation is mainly about security and control, not automatically increasing bandwidth.
The initial plan is 1 GbE, but I’ll review whether 10 GbE makes sense for the NAS and media users. I also won’t assume that connecting two cables automatically doubles the speed of one transfer.