I'm a junior network engineer building my first infrastructure environment for a company of roughly 30–50 users. The business regularly works with large media files and video storage, so network throughput, storage performance, and organization are important. The planned equipment includes a firewall, managed switch, server, and a 12-bay Synology NAS populated with four 12 TB drives. The immediate server requirement is Windows Server, but I'm deciding whether to install it directly on the hardware or run it as a virtual machine on Proxmox VE or Hyper-V. I'm also unsure how to structure the network. There are four departments, and I'm considering separate VLANs for each one. Would that be worthwhile at this size, or would a simpler design be better? The current network connections are 1 GbE over Cat5e, although I'm considering multiple links for simultaneous file transfers.
3 Answers
Pay close attention to the storage and network bottlenecks. A pair of 1 GbE links does not normally give one transfer 2 Gb/s; link aggregation usually distributes separate connections across links, and each individual flow may still be limited to 1 Gb/s. It can help with multiple simultaneous users if the switch, NAS, and server all support compatible LAG modes, but 10 GbE may be a better long-term choice for a media-heavy workflow. Separate the VM operating-system disk from its data disk where practical, and keep the NAS independently backed up—RAID or disk redundancy is not a backup. If the NAS is only file storage, keeping it as a dedicated appliance may be simpler than putting it inside a large virtual disk.
Don’t create a VLAN for every department just because you can. A practical small-business layout might include separate networks for employee devices, servers, guest Wi-Fi, management, and possibly IoT or infrastructure devices. Department-specific VLANs can make sense if you need different firewall policies or access restrictions, but they won’t automatically improve file-transfer speed. Keep the design simple, document it, and leave room to add segmentation when there is a real requirement.
Also remember that putting users in different VLANs can make large transfers slower if the traffic has to cross a firewall or router. Check the firewall’s inter-VLAN throughput before using it as the path for media traffic.
Virtualizing the Windows server is generally a good idea, even with only one server role. Hyper-V is often the simplest fit when the environment is Windows-based and the appropriate licenses are already available. Proxmox is also a reasonable option and can be cost-effective, but make sure you understand its backup, support, and management workflow before committing. A VM gives you easier backups, recovery, snapshots, and the ability to add more services later without rebuilding the host. Whichever platform you choose, don’t treat snapshots as backups, and make sure the host and storage have a proper recovery plan.
I’ll compare Hyper-V and Proxmox, including licensing and support coverage, before making the decision.
The NAS is a 12-bay Synology with four 12 TB drives. I’ll verify the switch and NAS link-aggregation support, measure actual throughput, and plan backups separately from the storage redundancy.