My current setup is a intel N100 mini pc running proxmox. This runs, among other things a Plex lxc and an OpenMediaVault VM. An 8tb HDD is connected to the mini pc via usb and passed through to the openmediavault VM. The drive is then setup as a network share. In Plex the SMB share is mounted with fstab and Plex looks to that folder for content. My current backup system is another 8tb drive in my desktop pc which I mirror with FreeFileSync.
I want to improve this setup and for a long time I've dreamt of getting a proper nas but the cost puts me off. I've recently been considering buying the TERRAMASTER D4-320 External Hard Drive Enclosure
Instead, putting 4X8tb drives in it and managing the RAID setup with the mini pc rather than a dedicated nas.
I'm thinking I could just connect up the Terramaster, pass it through to openmediavault, setup RAID 5 and carry on like I am but this seems like a good opportunity to see how I can improve how my current setup works.
Would love to hear some constructive feedback on how to improve this within the budget constraints. Should I stick with openmediavault? Should I be sharing the drives with smb? What else am I doing "wrong". We all end up with janky setups as we learn and stick to what we know but now is the time to learn how to do better.