For the uninitiated among us (including myself) could you explain what an HBA is? Or share any more details on how you’d build a low-cost NAS that’s not a Raspberry Pi?

I have a Raspberry Pi 4 that mounts a USB hard disk and serves files over SMB and Nextcloud. I have been considering reformatting the drive to ZFS or btrfs and booting the Pi directly from that so that I can start taking snapshots. Is this a bad idea?

I’ve looked at buying dedicated NAS hardware before (mostly Synology products) but I’m always deterred by the cost. A low end Synology NAS with drives runs around $500 or $600, which is a huge jump from my little Pi.