Network-attached storage (NAS) devices can do almost anything a home server can, just on smaller, more power-efficient hardware. Generally, they come with pre-built operating systems, but some models let you install your own. If you're building your own NAS, you'll need an operating system. What's more, there are plenty of options that are open source, which is always welcome to see.

It also means that as long as the OS is being actively developed, bug fixes will never be that far away, and there's often a thriving community of developers making plugins and other useful tools to run on it. That's before diving into containers and other features that are available on *nix-based systems.

OpenMediaVault (OMV) is one of our favorite NAS operating systems, partly because it's easy to install on anything from SBCs, mini-PCs, old laptops, and other older and lower-powered PCs. It can be installed as the main operating system, or installed on top of your favorite Linux distribution, so you could technically get the best of both worlds for your self-built NAS. Even with its modest hardware requirements, this is one of the most feature-laden NAS OSes around, with plenty of media-streaming focused tools that will help make your NAS into a media server of extraordinary power.