--- title: "Wilson Tool Case Study" url: https://www.truenas.com/case-studies/wilson-tool/ description: "Chris Meyer doesn’t buy on branding." breadcrumb: ["Home", "Case Studies", "Wilson Tool Case Study"] date_published: 2026-08-25 date_modified: 2026-10-15 author: "Pee Jay Latombo" source: html generator: tn-md-extract/1 --- [Home](https://www.truenas.com) › [Case Studies](https://www.truenas.com/case-studies/) › **Wilson Tool Case Study** [![truenas-community-edition Logo](https://www.truenas.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/truenas-enterprise-logo-logo-white-rgb-900px-w-72ppi-300x73.png "truenas-enterprise-logo-logo-white-rgb-900px-w-72ppi")](https://www.truenas.com/truenas-community-edition/) ![Wilson Tool Logo](https://www.truenas.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Wilson-Tool-Logo.webp "Wilson Tool") ### A Careful Start Chris Meyer doesn’t buy on branding. When Wilson Tool began looking for a [path off their Pure Storage array](https://www.truenas.com/purestorage-alternative/), he wasn’t looking for disruption. Pure was approaching end of support, and renewal conversations were coming. But ripping out production wasn’t on the table. **So he tested.** The first TrueNAS deployment wasn’t a rip-and-replace of production. It was a strategic placement at the backup site. A [TrueNAS M60HA](https://www.truenas.com/m-series/) went into their colocation facility, positioned as disaster recovery, and it would support their VMware environment first. If it held up, it would take on more. Chris asked hard questions. Performance thresholds and tuning, failure scenarios, edge cases. From the TrueNAS side, it looked like a land-and-expand motion. From his side, it was risk management. ### Proof Under Pressure A few months later, an incident at the primary site knocked their production array offline. Every production workload, including ERP and VMware, had to come up on the DR system. There was no phased migration and no gradual ramp-up. The team executed their incident response and got back to business. They flipped the switch. ERP came online. VMware responded in milliseconds. Users couldn’t tell they weren’t still running on the original array. Chris sent an email afterward with the subject line “Thanks for nothing.” It looked ominous at first. In the body of the email, he clarified it was a joke. He’d planned to call support, but after the cutover, the system simply worked and he didn’t even need the help from TrueNAS Support. Within hours, core operations were back up. That’s when the math changed. ### Expanding Without the Tax Wilson Tool could have re-purchased the same type of system and stayed on the same proprietary model. Instead, they expanded their TrueNAS footprint: - Upgraded and expanded their original [TrueNAS M60HA](https://www.truenas.com/m-series/) - Deployed an [all-NVMe TrueNAS F60HA](https://www.truenas.com/f-series/) in their primary site - Standardized on [compact TrueNAS H20HA](https://www.truenas.com/h-series/) systems for backup and global locations This wasn’t a reflex. It was a financial decision. In later discussions, Chris put it plainly: he liked having the choice. Choice in hardware. Choice in deployment model. Choice in how and when to scale. Under traditional enterprise storage arrays, growth often comes with vendor-certified component premiums, locked proprietary firmware, forklift upgrades to unlock performance tiers, and refresh cycles that track licensing structures more than business need. **That’s the storage tax.** Wilson Tool chose not to buy back into it. With TrueNAS, they standardized globally without retraining teams at each site. They expanded capacity without renegotiating licensing frameworks. They scaled on business requirements, not vendor-imposed tiers In a market dealing with hardware volatility and memory inflation, that flexibility translates directly into economic control. ### The Foundation Today TrueNAS started as the DR platform on test. It’s now the foundation. Today, Wilson Tool runs primary ERP and VMware backends, disaster recovery replication, a half-petabyte [Veeam](https://www.truenas.com/veeam/) repository, and file and VM workloads across multiple global sites. All of it runs on TrueNAS. Performance held up. Costs didn’t escalate with growth. And leadership gained confidence in a platform that had already proven itself under real production load. ### The Real Shift The incident didn’t create the economics conversation. **It clarified it.** Wilson Tool didn’t just replace hardware. They replaced a model that tied growth to rising proprietary costs. When it was time to decide, the architecture had already proven itself. When it was time to scale, the math made sense. That’s what stepping off the storage cost spiral looks like in practice. It started as the test system. It became the foundation. Case Study ## Wilson Tool .pdf / 532 KB ### FAQs **Q: Why did Wilson Tool move off Pure Storage?**  **A**: Wilson Tool’s existing Pure Storage array carried vendor-certified component premiums, locked proprietary firmware, and forklift upgrades tied to licensing cycles rather than actual business need. Chris Meyer wanted a system whose growth and support wouldn’t be dictated by that structure. **Q: What TrueNAS systems does Wilson Tool run today?**  **A**: Wilson Tool runs a TrueNAS M60HA (originally deployed at their colocation site for disaster recovery), an all-NVMe TrueNAS F60HA at their primary site, and compact TrueNAS H20HA systems for backup and global locations. **Q: How did TrueNAS perform during a production outage?**  **A**: The M60HA was deployed first as a DR system behind VMware, not as a production replacement. When a real production outage hit, that DR system carried the workload — proving itself under live conditions before Wilson Tool scaled TrueNAS to primary ERP and VMware duty. **Q: What does Wilson Tool run on TrueNAS now?**  **A**: Primary ERP and VMware backends, disaster recovery replication, a half-petabyte Veeam repository, and file and VM workloads across multiple global sites — all on TrueNAS, with performance holding up and costs not escalating with growth. 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