So the problem with thin margins on the hardware side is what’s stopping a user from just installing their own OS once they figure out they can do the same thing you’re doing on the same hardware?

I guarantee you half the people are here and got started self-hosting BECAUSE they wanted to start pirating.

Relax guys. It’s a Nintendo Switch, those things never get hacked.

As others here have mentioned, Tdarr can handle a lot of it automatically

Where do you get a 12 tb drive for $100?

Living in the Midwest, I’ve never really dealt with a major power outage we didn’t expect. Power company will send out a (very rare) notice if they are doing anything that might bring down power and usually if a thunderstorm starts to get rough, we shut down anything important so power flicker/surges don’t hurt it.

The big key is your hardware needs to support it. Back when “unified SSIDs” became a thing, some older 802.11n (WiFi 4) and ac (WiFi 5) devices could do it, but it was…. Weird.

If you have a newer router, especially WiFi 6 or 802.11ax it should be be to do the unified SSID.

You know how routing works, but not wireless networks apparently.

Mainstream NASs (like Synology and QNAP) are very good at what they’re built for, which is be available on the network and have plenty of storage.

They CAN do more, but then you start to notice the limitations. It is still “just a NAS.” It’s not called a NASAHVAVMM (Network Attached Storage and Hypervisor and VM Manager)

If you want to do what you described, a smaller NAS would probably be good for backups, but look into a fully fledged, capable server too.

Have you looked up raspberry pi magic mirror projects?

You don’t have to use a a mirror, but just a pi and an old monitor mounted on the wall would probably accomplish everything you need.