We're currently experiencing some significant cpu/ram performance issues with 2 VM's on our current HPE 2015 tower server (2x Xeon 8c/8t 1.7ghz) running server 2012 for HV and guests (10 guests total), so we're looking at getting a HPE DL325 1x 8c/16t Epyc 3.2ghz with server 2016 or 2019 HV and fresh installs for the two guests in question.
The new server is sata only with just 4x LFF bays so a big raid 10 array with cheaper sas drives (like in our tower server) isn't really an option, so to maximize performance cheaply we're looking at 2x enterprise-grade ssd's, whether HPE branded or maybe samsung/intel.
Our main goal is reliability/redundancy, so would 2x 1TB SSD drives in Raid 1 be reliable/performant enough in this case? I'm thinking partition the disk so the server 2016/2019HV (~128GB) is on one, and the two vm guests on another (~812GB).
This server comes with HPE Smart Array S100i SR Gen10 SW RAID, should we just ignore that and spring for a current/last gen hardware raid card? Is SW raid just not that reliable enough?
We are on a tight budget (hence the HPE DL325 choice), plus we're a small biz, any tips/guidance for a reliable cheap configuration would be much appreciated.