I need raw storage, like ALOT of raw storage; possibly over 100TBs from all the videos I have. Right now, my current build is a custom Corsair 900D (look up the size) with a bunch of drives underneath my computer but it gets flipping hot in the summer time and I'm kind of over it, likely 15+ HDDs. I plan on consolidating with a bunch of large plattered HDDs to reduce the amount, but likely I'll need around 5 (could be fine at 4). When my wife wants to bring up videos of our kids, or I grab my laptop to work instead of going up to my office, the pulling of data off my rig is super slow. This might be caused by a slower router or a distance issue since the router is fairly far away from my office. Regardless, putting something closer either wired into the router, or at least more central and wireless is probably a better idea to access all these HDDs.
I saw an old thread on here where a guy just built his own "mini server" and I'm thinking of doing the same if there are benefits outside of just having another computer in the house. Outside of the brand name recognition and their software being pretty good, does anything extra come from getting a NAS specific device like a Synology? If I build a computer, do I just run Windows and use the kind of junky network stuff built into windows explorer? Is it just as reliable/fast? Can I get away with lowish RAM/mediocre processor?