I've lived with Windows since version 3.1, and have used every version MS has shipped, except for Windows 8. Somewhere along the way I built a WIndows Home Server, and it worked fairly well.
Time moved on and Windows Home Sever fell by the wayside (not long after Ballmer gave it the thumbs up actually) and I eventually put Windows 10 in as the new
OS... and it still worked OK, but just got more and more clunky as time passed. Once agin, I found myself saying 'time to try Linux again'... it's bound to be easier than last time!
Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu server all came and went - the learning curve is just too steep (for me at least). That said though, the modest hardware looked like it had a new lease of life (Athlon II X2 240e, 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD for the os, 2 x 1 TB drives for storage).
After a while pondering what I really, really needed I thought about NAS software rather than Server software and then after a few Google searches I happened upon OMV - two days later the 'server' is up and running, drives populated with all my stuff from the antique ReadyNAS!
The hardware is pretty low power - only about 80w once it's running. I'm not doing anything intensive, although that might change now that I have something that works and that I can tinker with a learn from.
Suffice to say I'm truly grateful to everyone behind OMV - the solution I didn't know existed. 