I bought a 2-bay Synology 10 years or so ago and ran out of space within a couple of years with 2 x 3T disks. I looked at a 5-bay or 8-bay solution from them but the cost was more than buying server-grade hardware and rolling my own TrueNAS Box.
It was a learning curve for sure even though I work in IT but it's gotten much more point-and-click these days. IX Systems will even sell you a complete system without drives.
Depending on how much or little effort you want to put into it in increasing levels your options are:
1. Buy a 4-5 Bay Synology, Qnap etc.
2. Get a system from IX Systems
3. Roll your own NAS using:
a) TrueNAS, Unraid, ProxMox ...
If you do want to roll your own and run any ZFS it is strongly recommended to use ECC memory which you'll have to jump through hoops to do using that 3600. Unraid would work better with that hardware but if you don't want to be tinkering with the system and just want a reliable NAS you can get up and running quickly I'd go with option 1 or 2.
And yes, as others have mentioned make sure you get CMR rather than SMR drives.
Level One Techs and Craft Computing on YouTube have some good tutorials on setting up TrueNAS.
Lord_Fudge reacted to Gorgon in Advice on either buying a NAS or making on myself. Inexperienced tech person here
