Sounds a lot like my setup, but since I have a rack I got a used 1U Supermicro server off ebay for OPNsense and built 3x 2U AMD 5600X based servers for proxmox.
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The only thing that makes me nervous is the minipc use a single stick of m.2 NVME SSD. Iāve never used SSD before so Iām unsure of their long term reliability. So there are some unknowns for me here. Still researching.
Pardon the simple question, but why do people typically choose to install a NAS? Don't get me wrong, I'm not completely clueless 
I get that having stuff like movies / tv shows / songs available across all devices is a thing... and that there is a benefit to having local backups of various files / systems on the network. Are those the main use cases? I'm also aware of the often built-in convenience NAS systems can offer through hosting Docker or other container systems....
I bought my first QNAP around 2011 for music and movie storage. Obviously well before the streaming services we have today. I have several terabytes of both that I wanted access to via my Logitech Squeezeboxes I had back in the day or DLNA media streaming to my TVs. Then over time I started running various apps, vms, containers in it and it has become a central point of my home setup.
Today I rarely access any of that music or media and use streaming services with my fiber internet. My NAS is currently used for local storage of documents, pictures, etc. Primary use these days is running docker containers for Homebridge, InfluxDB, MariaDB, NodeRed, Grafana, Uptime Kuma, Scrypted, etc and a VM with Home Assistant that I recently spun up for local Ecobee and Aqara FP2 integration.
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That's what I thought, as much as one response is a yardstick... My take is that, personally, I don't have a need for much local storage of media like music and movies, or where I choose to, I could handle that without the need for a NAS. Any containers or Apps that I could/should setup using containers I could setup using the various RPi's I have...
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How do you backup your data? Whether itās media, documents or other files?
Did you see Scrypted is recommending to move away from Docker to using proxmox VM?
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And I have a few of those too 
one just deployed to monitor a whole house generator I installed a few months ago. The other was running NUT monitoring a few UPS I have in my ānetworkā closet which I probably donāt need now that I have a whole house generator.
I hear you and agree. It solved several uses cases I had over 10 years ago and have just stuck with it. I am at the point where I need to replace my aging 10 year old NAS or move everything to something else. Just havenāt decided because I will admit a NAS and 4 large drives is pricey and you have to ask yourself if itās worth the expense for you needs. I have balked at the pricing of online backup storage but if you compare that to the overall price of a NAS itās not that bad.
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I didnāt as that has mostly been a setup and forget service of mine. I use it to see video within HomeKit. Appreciate the heads up on that.
Backups...? What? Yeah, I'm lazy with that stuff, which is one reason for at least starting to look at some form of storage, whether a $$$ NAS or something more custom. I'm a Google fan-boy, so most of my doc's and photos are up there, plus the automated backups Google does. Beyond that, I don't take any local backups of local devices like I know I should... Hence the question. I do also have OneDrive, so there's probably some doc's being kept up there.... Plus (most) developer work should be up in GitHub.... Plus I don't have other family members to worry about who are less across that stuff...
I have a whole house generator and still maintain (albeit smaller power rating) UPS to cover the 45 second power blip between the time the power goes out and the genny kicks in. I might have to hit you up on PM to see how youāre monitoring your genny with a pi at some point in the future.
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I have 2 1500 UPS now which used to give me about 1.5-2 hours during an outage. That NUT RPi also ran NodeRed where it would shut things down like HEs based on what the UPS was reporting.2 1500 UPSs is overkill now so plan to remove one of the UPSs at some point.
Re generator monitoring, look into Genmon. Itās awesome compared to the crappy Generac app that came with my generator. It works with other brands too though mostly focused at Generac branded generators. Search this community for āgenmonā and you will see that many community members use it and there is an integration too.
Ok thanks. Will have to take a look. Appreciate it.
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The primary reason I have a synology nas is for PC backups. Prior to this I was using Macrium Reflect on individual machines but the free personal version only supports complete backups and the free version has gone away. The free version never supported incremental or differential backups.
Active Backup for Business on Synology does incrementally backups and compares data across machines - it will only backup the same file once.
What this means for me, instead of doing weekly backups, daily backups are quick and are not significant to the overall backup space required.
Another plus is the bare metal restore. You can boot the PC from a USB and restore the boot SSD.
The synology also replaces OneDrive/Dropbox/etc. My cloud storage is also on my NAS.
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Are you stating that all of your systems still use only rotating hard drives? No Solid State Drives (SSD) in any of your computers?
For me, the introduction of the SSD was probably the single biggest advancement in computers over the last 2 decades. Reducing latency to near zero was huge, and modern day NVME PCI Express 4.0 bandwidth is absolutely amazing.
I use an old desktop PC as my "NAS". It boots off of a small 120GB SATA drive, and has 3 x 8TB Western Digital Red spinning hard drives. I am simply waiting for SSD prices to drop further, and for SSD sizes to go up a bit. At that point, if I decide to rebuild my home server, it will use all flash storage. Hopefully, my current system has a few more years left in it! 
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Yes, I have a laptop I use for work and Iām not a gamer anymore so didnāt need to keep up with the latest tech. My iPhone / iPad handle the majority of what I need a Pc for and what I do need I have an older Dell slowsky machine for web and a few use case specific software such as 3D printing.
Iāve been considering moving to a minipc for all my need moving forward to be honest but I may want to play some games so that may change that decision. Time will tell.
Yes, those are more or less what I'm looking to do. Back up photos, music etc. from phones/ Pc. I would like to get some more personal stuff out of athird party cloud and into something locally controlled. I am also interested in some other possible uses including Docker or Twin Gate that I would like to experiment with, and whatever else I find in the rabbit hole I've been venturing down for a while. An NAS has been on list for a while, but the cost has been an issue (which is why I was initially interested in the Ugreen). Based on this discussion, I'm likely going to go Synology.
My primary computer is a 6ish year-old Dell Insprion that is really used more as a desktop than a laptop. I have maxed out the ram and replaced the 1 TB HDD with a 2TB SSD so it hums along relatively well at the moment. If I need to do stuff away from my office and workstation, I use my iPad for that. I know in the next two or three years its probably going to be ready to be replaced. Im just biding my time while I decide what to do next. On one hand I do want to get a Mac or mac Mini but know I will need to keep a windows machine around. I recently spun up home assistant on a BeeLink S12 Mini PC and that has me considering replacing the laptop with one of those when the time comes.
So, one of my questions for those knowledgeable, can I use a NAS both for file storage as well as things, Like Docker, Twin Gate, maybe running a Linux server in it? Honestly I've been going down SEVERAL rabbit holes the last few months, so I probably have some pretty scrambled and disjointed thoughts on the subject.
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You should be practicing a 3-2-1 backup strategy
3 Copies of your data. Your Production Data, and 2 back up copies.
1 local backup 1 offsite/cloud backup.
This ensures in the event of a catastrophic loss (such as your house burning down) that you can restore your data.
In my case I have local backups which are mirrored to an aws bucket.
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Most of our stuff is currently in OneDrive, Mega and a little in iCloud (mostly Pictures) . Leave that stuff there and add the local back up on the NAS?
You could. I prefer the bucket method though. I don't backup raw files though. I do my primary backups with Veeam (they have a great free version if you wanna try it) and those backups are mirrored to the bucket. So for me veaam is required to restore.
