Vedeyn

If you have line of sight, the best thing you can do then is to create a layer2 bridge between the two locations, this is easy to do in the modern age as technology has come on quite significantly.  This will allow you to share the 500/500 connection to the other location also with the capability of getting the full 500Mbit to the other site (depending on distance and line of sight)
 
Using Ubiquiti AirMax/AirFiber/Nano Wifi you can get a low latency high bandwidth connection between sites with ease, now comes what technology and speed you want to get to the other site.

Cheap is anywhere around 150Mbit/150Mbit+ which can be a product like Nano Beam to easily create a layer 2 connection between sites;
 
https://www.ubnt.com/airmax/nanobeamm/
 
If you just want 150Mbit+ bidirectionally, then go fore the NBE-M2-16 model
If you want more and would like to share the 450Mbit+ between sites then go for the NBE-5AC-Gen2 model

I have used these devices myself and regardless of your level of expertise, you should be able to accomplish the job easily enough.

A update would be cool, I recommend to update the firmware first, then use one of the wizards to get started.

Looking around on the ubnt forums, it looks like this is one of the "cons" of the ER-L. Since QOS is done in software, not hardware offloaded, the ER-L struggles a bit with it.
 
Quote from one of the forum posts there:
"ERLite-3 and ERPoe-5: below 60 Mbps most likely will work, above 200 Mbps most likely will not work."
 
So I guess it depend on what you've got for internet bandwidth and how much you expect to get after enabling QOS. Not a big deal for me since I didn't plan on enabling it.. and even if I do, I've got a 50/50 connection so should be OK. I can see how this would be a concern for some though.

My hope is to get stickied, or at least give some of us something to easily link others to when they're looking for a build guide. 
 
SOFTWARE:
Unfortunately going into more detail regarding O/S is going to be very user-specific and each O/S could have its own entire thread (heh, forum actually). All I mean by "custom" is it's not pre-packaged.
 
NAS focused (Some do support virtualization, but otherwise are not type-1 hypervisors):
FreeNAS
NAS4Free
Unraid
Windows Storage Spaces
Custom: Windows + FlexRAID
Custom: Linux + ZFS
 
Virtualization: (You could then virtualize your NAS solution with some caveats in mind)
Linux: Everyone in the end uses KVM, so you can do it yourself or chose one that's been gussied up: Proxmox / unraid / others
Windows: Hyper-V (Included with Windows Server, also free if you download Windows Server Core Edition)
vmware: ESXi (actually runs on linux-ish, but not KVM)
Citrix: Xenserver
 
 
HARDWARE:
Nothing will include disk prices...
Used ($250+):
Pros: Cheap, rack mountable, powerful
Cons: Uses more energy than custom (120w idle), very limited options when upgrading the processor, much louder than a PC
 
New ($453+) Not suggested for virtualization:
Pros: Everything is shiny and new, uses slightly less energy.., can be upgraded
Cons: More expensive than used
New ($683+) For virtualization:
Pros: Same as above
Cons: Same as above.
 
 
This gets regurgitated over and over. I forgot the HP ones so if somebody chimes in I'll add them.

After some looking around and weighing my options, I opted for the EdgeRouter Lite and UAP‑AC‑LR. If anyone is interested I can update once I get them and set them up.

Management is the same, the lite has 512MB ram over 256MB on the X, Cpu is a little slower on the lite BUT it has hardware acceleration for packet processing(so in practice its faster).
 
the X can do 130 Kpps (at 64B packets) 1Gbps (at 1518B packets) when the lite can do 1 Mpps (at 64B packets) and 3Gbps (at 512B Packets)so is greatly faster at handling small packet loads.
 
other then that it is ports and POE pass through is needed.
 
I don't know how much the pps plays a part but I dont think it is a big deal for a normal home. and all this is for internet traffic because your switch will handle local traffic.
 
Edit: I think the pps will only matter if you host a high traffic web site off your network, most heavy traffic things people do is video streaming which uses big packets. the high pps would also be useful if you hosted a 100+ person LAN and you want everyone to be able to use the internet.

for the PFsense part.. its a really powerfull solution if you need it.. You can buy small arm based boxes that will run it quite fine.

I was also at first think of building a Pfsense machine, but in reality it is very overkill. I went with the edgerouter lite due to the know hardware reliability and ease of use. even the edgerouter lite is overkill for almost any home. Like the wizards the newer firmware has which makes it really easy to setup with really needing to know what you are doing. I would say do the Pfsense if you really want to tinker with it.

Most of what I do is gaming, hosting a few servers, video streaming, and some remote work done through a VPN back to my network.. so nothing too crazy. I'll maybe grab the AP and do a bit of research on the routers then. Any particular thoughts on that AP? Should come in at a bit under $200 with the promo newegg has going, so not too bad.

I don't know much about AP's sorry, I use this D-Link router my roommate won at a LAN as a AP. it is some $300 AC router, looks like a UFO with 8 antennas. we live on the 4th foor, and I can get wifi in the parking lot outside.
 
Ubiquity has a nice range of AP's all should be good and should pair nicely with their routers. depending on the size of your place if may or may not be better to get 2 smaller AP's vs 1 powerful one.
 
 

Well this all gives me a decent place to start. Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it!

are you copying or moving the files?
 
What file system?
 
Moveing the files doesn't need to move data, so its instant
 
Copy on write file systems like you copy files with out moving data.