I get what you are saying. But the 'up and running' is dead easy with these NAS boxes. They are wickedly plug and play. Where a DIY version is fun and interesting to do, but takes some configuring and fiddling and researching. Not necessarily hard just something I did not really want to mess with. Spin on about 10 years and now I am considering DIY. But for other reasons (like you point out). Storage is no longer my primary sole use case. Which means a bit more DIY on the next one.
It for me was just a mater of how much time/effort did I want to sink into it. I just wanted a large storage system. A off the shelf NAS I can be up and running in 2-3 hours. For DIY there is the research time for parts (including the drives), cases, and which software to run (there are 3-4 decent choices). Then gluing it all together. Probably 2-3 days for me fiddling around with it and research time.
Take the one I went with synology. The one I picked was in the 600 dollar range for the case. By the time your done picking a decently powered board, case and memory and cpu. You are in the same ballpark of cost for similar perf. The package was all done. I did not have to do much (notice a theme?). My most expensive part of the build? The drives themselves.
The downside is now I want something like 2.5g (or better) and the particular one I picked has zero way to upgrade (other than ripping the thing apart and hoping the right drivers are in there). It is about trade offs. Did I really want the possibility of upgrade or up and running quickly. Remember this is not something I do all the time. It is something I do every 3-4 years so I have to refamiliarize myself with all the different possible parts. Plus getting the OS in there 'just right'. Not impossible or even hard. I just chose a different trade off.
It for me was just a mater of how much time/effort did I want to sink into it. I just wanted a large storage system. A off the shelf NAS I can be up and running in 2-3 hours. For DIY there is the research time for parts (including the drives), cases, and which software to run (there are 3-4 decent choices). Then gluing it all together. Probably 2-3 days for me fiddling around with it and research time.
Take the one I went with synology. The one I picked was in the 600 dollar range for the case. By the time your done picking a decently powered board, case and memory and cpu. You are in the same ballpark of cost for similar perf. The package was all done. I did not have to do much (notice a theme?). My most expensive part of the build? The drives themselves.
The downside is now I want something like 2.5g (or better) and the particular one I picked has zero way to upgrade (other than ripping the thing apart and hoping the right drivers are in there). It is about trade offs. Did I really want the possibility of upgrade or up and running quickly. Remember this is not something I do all the time. It is something I do every 3-4 years so I have to refamiliarize myself with all the different possible parts. Plus getting the OS in there 'just right'. Not impossible or even hard. I just chose a different trade off.