Advice for new DIY NAS for home use

[Enquiries]

I do photography as hobby and have few external HDDs and SSDs filled up with totaling to about 8TB of data. Hence looking for a long term option with NAS with double the storage (16TB) to begin with. This would be only for home usage and I do not have plans for any photography business.

I'm a fairly technical person with software development background. Building a NAS solution would be a fun project for me. Hence looking for some advice to build a DIY NAS..
Mainly looking for suggestion for minimum 4Bay enclosure. With additional option SSD, 8GB RAM. Would like to have an HDMI output in motherboard so that can avoid extra GPU.

Budget is around $500 including RAM. Initially I'm thinking to start with two 16-20 TB HDD from Seagate or WD.. And would expand in future as per need.

Looking forward to some advice to start on the components listing. Thank you!

[ed]

For a DIY NAS setup with your budget and requirements, here's a potential configuration that should fit well:

Key Components for DIY NAS Build:
NAS Enclosure (Case):

Look for a 4-bay case that is affordable and provides good airflow. Fractal Design Node 804 or SilverStone DS380 are solid choices. Both are compact but spacious enough for 4 hard drives and offer good cooling.
Motherboard:

For your need of HDMI output, a mini-ITX motherboard with integrated graphics would be a good choice. The ASRock B450 Gaming-ITX/ac (or any similar AM4 board) offers HDMI, and you can pair it with a compatible Ryzen processor.
Another great option is a Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO with a Ryzen 5 3400G, as it includes integrated Radeon RX Vega graphics for HDMI output.
Processor (CPU):

The AMD Ryzen 3 3200G or Ryzen 5 3400G are excellent options for this type of build. These come with integrated graphics (no need for a dedicated GPU) and plenty of processing power for a home NAS.
Memory (RAM):

Go for 8GB DDR4 (for example, Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB). If you plan to run virtual machines or use more advanced features, you can upgrade later, but 8GB is plenty for most home NAS tasks.
Storage (Drives):

For your initial 16-20TB usable storage, Seagate IronWolf or WD Red NAS drives would be great options. Both brands offer reliable, NAS-optimized drives that support continuous operation.
Start with 2 x 8TB drives (you could start with a RAID 1 or RAID 5 configuration, depending on your preference for redundancy).
Power Supply:

For power, look for a reliable, low-wattage 80 Plus certified power supply. A Corsair SF450 should work well for a compact build, but any reliable 400-500W PSU will suffice.
Software:

You can install TrueNAS (formerly FreeNAS), which is free and very powerful for a DIY NAS. It provides great features like ZFS support, which helps with data integrity and redundancy.