Like others have said, I also prefer having a backup and getting new HW when shit hits the fan.
You can build a warm-standby solution, but that road is both costly and more labor intensive.

The family can survive for a few hours while I run out to get a new drive or NUC to fix stuff.
If you’re lucky, it happens right after dinner so you can skip clean-up too!

Cool, well then I can at least share what I went with that has worked really well: GMKtech N100 NUC from Aliexpress with 16 GB of RAM.

It’s hosting Jellyfin with transcoding, PiHole, Home Assistant, Heimdal, a Valheim server and loads of other small LXC’s in Proxmox.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen it break a sweat.
The NAS holds the .arr stack and Qbit, but that’s it.

I cannot speak to the longevity of it, but I repasted the CPU once I got it and it’s chilling below 45 degrees all day long, so I expect it to last for many years. I also enabled C-states to get idle consumption as low as possible, around 7-8W.

Best of luck with whatever setup you end up with mate!

I run a 4 bay and a N100 NUC.

The Synology is almost a pure storage machine. Works really well with Proxmox on the side. Not a single file has made it kneel yet, and I’ve thrown some high bitrate badboys on it.

Is not upgrading the drives an alternative?

I feel like you sacrifice a lot of practicality removing the NAS, such as automatic backup from phones and very easy remote access.
Personally I also prefer separating data and software, so I don’t lose it all if a component fails.

Just my .02

He never said it is. Most people don’t think it is.
We want NATO as a security, should we ever need it.

It’s like paying for insurance: let’s hope you never need it, but are glad to should the need arise. It’s not hard to understand, mate.

We all hope NATO can sit idly by and make plans they never ever need to execute.

I know there is unRAID and TrueNAS, but I went with a traditional NAS (Synology, before all the fuckery) and a small N100 NUC on the side.
The NAS is critical for the whole family with backups, pictures and general files, so I need it to be 110%. On it, I just run the .arr stack, Surveilance Station and Qbit, and the NUC runs all my other containers like Jellyfin and Home Assistant. Full access to the files via NFS and it gives me good power for transcoding when needed. Even 4K high bitrate files play seamlessly on WiFi now.

It’s been rock solid and I would probably do it the same way again if I had to rebuild.

Best of luck finding the appropriate solution for your needs, mate!

You keep doing you. I found the joke funny.

If we’re all too afraid of downvotes to post our true opinions, Lemmy will turn into another echochamber.

I try to stay out of American politics because I get that my views are probably skewed being in Europe, but I do see his approval ratings close to and sometimes above 50% on certain areas.

Without telling you what to do about it, I must admit it scares me to think that there are millions of people agreeing with what he’s doing. It feels like the US is a preassure cooker only just getting started, slowly inching towards a disastrous explosion.

What are the realistic potential outcomes of everything going on?

As a Jellyfin-fanboy: you are right. Plex is easier to deal with out of the box.
Anything else would not make any sense for a paid service.

I’d say though, if you dedicate the time to set it up correctly, it is an equally good solution and it’s free.
If time is a factor in your life, then there is no shame in paying for something that just works. It’s why I have a Synology NAS and not a self-built Unraid or OMV server.

I run Jellyfin on Chromecast with Google TV every day, it works super well.

Unless you mean casting from your phone, then I don’t know.