It was a combination of factors, really:
Dude I’ve gone full circle on this one, and I currently am on the Synology train and life is easy.
It feels like I’ve had a bit of everything at some point. Clarkconnect, Windows Home Server, straight Ubuntu, Unraid, FreeNAS, some garbage on my router…
… Synology stuff is super well designed, easy to use, and widely supported. I spent some time chasing privacy options, but other than that it has been zero hassle and high reliability.
Ha! I thought that’s what it was.
I jumped ship due to privacy concerns - I didn’t like that my internally-hosted Plex web home had like 12 things blocked by uBlock, and I really like open source software!
100% do this.
https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/nanobeam-5ac
I fought this battle at every price point and the nanobeams are absolutely the way to go. Extremely easy and reliable.
I wish I’d started with them!