snatch1eB

r740s are still fine to be used for production, even with new 15 and 16 gens available.

For the shared storage, you may try to go with the Starwinds vsan, the system requirements are pretty low and you would be able to use the internal storage as shared one, so no need of the additional box. Also, it has guide with the steps, so shouldn’t be an issue: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library/starwind-virtual-san-vsan-free-configuration-guide-for-proxmox-virtual-environment-ve-kvm-vsan-deployed-as-a-controller-virtual-machine-cvm/

As far as I remeber, it was possible to prolongue dell support for them, so, yeah, they are still good.

That is what I am talking about, they are still good for running them especially for SMB, if they can get refurb servers with hardware support.

Well, it depends from the worload, but I would really change them to new hardware already.

Hmm, obviously not…

In case of HDD, you have 3 brands to work with Seagate, WD and Toshiba, they are all fine in terms of reliability, you need to look for the best $/TB ratio and warranty time. To keep your data safe, I would rather think to implement 3-2-1 backup rule. https://www.veeam.com/blog/321-backup-rule.html

I am not really sure about flashdrives, however, SanDisk SSDs are just horribly unreliable. Also, I would only use flashdrives for the temp data, not as the main media for any data.

If you have a good deal already, just have them. If there any good deals on Black Friday, then get them as well. You cannot ever have too much drives ;)

Remember to make backups of the healthy drives as well.