This is a link to my First FreeNAS build back in 2014.

•  FreeNAS SAN with 10TB storage on Dell 2950 for vSphere.

While VMware vSAN is very interesting it does require 3 or 4 hosts minimum , with SSD’s in each host.   For a home lab and use for Plex Media a found that I can keep power consumption down by using a FreeNAS server and a single ESXi host.

Over the years this box was upgraded with larger disks , but it served well for general purpose storage.