I currently am using Windows 2003 Server for hosting NFS. I'm very happy with it, and with NTFS compression, it is wonderful. However, Windows has a file size limitation of around ~50GB, from a reliability standpoint through, at least Windows 2008. I haven't checked 2012. I have a .vmdk that is ~55 gigs, thus, I'm looking for other people's experience in the FreeBSD or Linux role for this. I know there is FreeNAS, but I'm just wondering if simply another .vhd to one of my FreeBSD monitoring machines is the way to go when all I want is an NFS volume. I'm guessing I'll lose my thin file size. ZFS and I don't get along very well, so I don't know if I'll take a swing at that again or not. I got out of Linux several years ago, but I'd go back into it if I had to. A bare metal machine on the network for NFS isn't going to happen, and this arrangement has worked fine since 2008, so there is no reason to throw money at it. I'd like to avoid what other people here already learned wasn't reliable or didn't work. If I remember right, VMware's NFS support isn't that up to date, so there are things to avoid there too.
Thanks!