Synology is great because of the easy backup. But it is limiting your ideas for your new NAS. Leave it in “backup corner” :)
Play with ZFS, see how much flexibility it really has, and when you got that up, then write your first own smb.conf - and the new NAS is done.
For the host, proxmox. There’s nothing else at the moment that makes more sense.
What the … LOL
Samba makes the same files available via another protocol. Sometimes you prefer a web browser interface, or the nextcloud companion app, and sometimes you prefer the Windows explorer.
Is owncloud or an alternative enough, or do I need something more elaborated like TrueNAS?
I run a Nextcloud for my family and then serve the same folders again via samba to the same users. Don’t need a separate NAS for this, just activate the samba service on the same machine.
Regarding the pirate ship, I don’t know. I haven’t tried that yet.
Do you absolutely need to put ONE tag on it all and say this is it?