alt Hacker NewsI built my own NAS, just Ubuntu+ZFS using an old PC I had and it works great. Don't know why people are so crazy about buying prebuilt NASes.
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Why wouldn't they be? No fiddling, super compact form factor, (usually) far superior energy efficiency, maybe phone apps, did I mention no fiddling?
Also, the form factor!
i did that, and really wish i bought something , mostly because i have like 4 hhds just lying in the bottom of the case
For me, it was laziness. While I have the skills to built one from parts, I just wanted a big drive in an aesthetically pleasing box. I didn't want a project. I wanted something small and somewhat rugged. So I got a synology 5-bay almost seven years ago and have never looked back. It lives beside my UPS and wifi router in a small tower, all objects I expect to "just work" for months on end without any attention.
My AI rig ... that is a project. (After a kernel update, one of my GPUs has disappeared. Fixing that will be a project for my next day off.) I don't want my NAS to ever become a weekend project.
Its the maintenance and details that kill your NAS.
You will probably rely on it for 10 years at least, so building your NAS means committing to maintaining it in the long term, you have to be sure this is something you will uphold.
Also while setting up your NAS initially is definitely doable, there are a trillion little things to get right and make sure won't bite you later on (scrubble, etc).
All these things compounds if the NAS is not just for you, but your wife, kids, family, etc. Now it becomes your responsibility that all these precious data and photos entrusted to you are 100% safe for the decades to come.