> Running 12 guests on a single host isn't going to put you in the high-end server range. That's pretty run-of-the-mill consolidation.
Like I said, I'm not even sure how much a DL360 can handle. At the moment I run 4 vm's on it, and trying to run a fifth was too much last time I tried. Of course it depends on roles and functions on the guest, which makes the answer harder.
> I'm not very clear on the math you're using
Like I said, it's not my math, I'm not really sure what the guy meant. All I know is that he's got massive experience and I generally trust what he says. To be sure about those numbers I would need to do a 5 year budget plan. Haven't really got that far yet.
> rsync gives you crash-consistent copies of your workloads, which isn't very attractive
Well, that depends on what kind of data you rsync, doesn't it? I use rsync today not for backup but replication over a VPN tunnel of certain unique data.
I'm not saying I couldn't live without the services the QNAP can provide, but they sure are handy sometimes. Of course it wouldn't be the sole purpose of getting an external storage, then it sure would be foolish. I'm saying I want to factor in every aspect and weigh them together. The QNAP isn't 6k alone, the 10GbE switch and network cards are taking a lot of space there. It's around 3k with 8 disks.