I've come full-circle, from open-source to off-the-shelf.
In earlier days, consumer solutions were really poor, performance-wise on a $ basis. Pro solutions which offered many of the features we take for granted today were out of reach. Today, plug-and-play feature-rich NASes are a dime a dozen, and quite affordable.
The problem with DIY solutions is the investment of time required to plan, purchase, build and make the !@#$%^&*() work.
The result varies because it's unlikely any two person's built is exactly the same, hardware and software. Practically speaking, it can be a piece of cake for one person and a troubleshooting nightmare for another. There's just too many components and code out there.
Unless this is a hobby, I'd say skip the DIY route. Modern NASes have plenty of convenience built-in and are highly accessible via network access points like smart phones, TVs etc.
BTW, if you do decide to go down the hobbyist route, give zfs a miss unless you have a powerful processor, a ssd cache and a ups. The overhead is horrendous with zfs.
