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The original was posted on /r/selfhosted by /u/joezim007 on 2024-09-18 15:46:57+00:00.

I have an ad hoc home server running Windows (it was the only thing I was comfortable with at the time, plus it doubled as a gaming computer for my kids at the time). I have Nextcloud and Plex running on it and sometimes I run a Valheim server.

I’m planning on moving off of Windows, but I’m not sure whether I should use TrueNAS or a standard Linux distro. Either way I plan on using Coolify and having apps run through it rather than using the app system built into the NAS software.

The primary difference in my mind is managing storage. NAS OS’s are definitely purpose-built to make managing large arrays of disks simpler, but I’m not really sure how simple that will be on Linux. What options are available? I currently have 5x 4TB drives and will likely need to expand at some point, preferably by just plugging in additional drives.

I will need to have a folder be easily accessible as a network drive via my Windows computers (they are the ones ripping the DVDs for Plex), but I don’t really need much else from a normal NAS use case.

So, will a plain desktop Linux distro (e.g. Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian) work well enough? If so, what do you recommend for disk management?