Was there 6 months ago, I’ll just share what I did: OS: I went with Unraid because you can mix different sized HDDs without loosing space, just make sure the parity disc is same size or bigger as the biggest one with data. I backup everything with duplicacy to a stupid nas (wd mybook i got 2nd hand) and to an external hosting via ssh.
Most CPU is used for video transcoding so I went with a 12th gen i3 12100, it’s more than enough for my usage. Just don’t make the same error as I did… I really recommend a better cooler than the boxed one. It can get loud when unmanic starts to converting bigger videos to h265.
My normal PC is fully team red as it just works better on Linux for gaming but for nas, 12th gen Intel seems to be the way to go as far as my research shows.
I don’t use a gpu and the slot for it is used for a DELL perc h310 SAS controller in IT mode for more discs.
Most services are not exposed and I use wireguard to access my server remotely. Single docker services are exposed with nginx reverse proxy manager and dyndns, my domain is set to resolve to local IP addresses when at home or through vpn, this way I can always use the same hostnames with valid certificates. I use a simple bash script in a cron job to update my dns zone.
I have other hardware to play around and did work with proxmox and other solutions, but this NAS had to just work without lot of tinkering and I’m really happy with it.