I'm aware of FreeNAS. I used to run a custom NAS setup. What I've learned is that its not worth my time to be making NAS setups. It can be a surprising ordeal from both a hardware and software PoV. If I were to build my own NAS, the first item on my wish list would be open source hardware with no firmware blobs and no hidden processors that I didn't ask for. Where do you go to get that? AMD has PSP, Intel has ME, ARM has TrustZone (yes I'm aware these are not identical,) and all of them feel untrustworthy to me now.

If RISC-V is fast enough to power a NAS and open source SATA controllers exist, I would absolutely prefer a setup involving that.

If I'm not going to get that... I'd probably prefer a setup from Synology. They'll do a good enough job, probably better than I could, even if the price is a premium.

You don't have to do it yourself. Why not just buy one of these:

https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-mini/

I have won and its pretty awesome, running for years, have replaced the disks multible times by now.

Its very upgradable as well, you can put in more ram, caches and so on.

Open Hardware is pretty much a no-go at the moment, but iXSystems does support a lot of Open Source.

I would recommend this setup above any of these Synology things, when I compare my problems with my friends who have Synology, I usually come out pretty happy with my choices.

Yes, you have a choice between using CPU with Meltdown/Spectre bugs or with only Spectre bug. Spectre is not fixed yet.

I understand what you’re trying to say, but what's the alternative? Stop using computers? Once Meltdown and Spectre are out of the picture, there will be another crisis. That’ll happen forever, I think.

Honestly, the older I get, the more sick of IT I become, but what can we do about this?

Im in the market for a NAS right now, so this is perfect timing. I’m more willing to trust FreeNAS than MyCloud but as soon as I write that, I remember lots of Open Source is crap too.

I highly recommned this:

https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-mini/

You get FreeNas on good hardware by people who know what they are doing. I have been running this for years and I have no complaints exept that the 8 slot variant did not exists when I bought mine.

Oh thank you, this might be perfect!

Edit: It seems they don't sell to the UK :(

I order it from the US and it was no problem. I'm in Switzerland. Payed some tax, but not enough to that it mattered for me.

It is still way better then the competition.

I am not saying that people should throw out computers and live in caves. I am just describing a current situation which makes me sad.

Oh, I agree with you; the state of computer security is really depressing :(

Spectre is a non-issue on a home NAS.