Running the hypervisors built in to unraid or truenas are certainly options but proxmox/VMware are just easier. If you’re learning about virtualization, you’re going to find a lot more resources for proxmox/VMware. Conversely the storage capabilities of proxmox/VMware are either severely limited in the case of VMware or just not particularly user friendly for proxmox. By virtualizing your storage OS you can get the best of both worlds for some situations. Sure, there are situations where it’s a bad idea but if you’ve only got one machine and it has plenty of resources it can be very effective.
Heck even if the main function for the NAS is just windows shares, that full blown storage OS is going to give you redundancy, snapshots, and replication. I’d say those are pretty important even for Windows shares.
I think it’s a healthy part of the growth of the Fediverse. Maybe it ends up being a good idea, maybe not. Hopefully everyone can keep an open mind and learn some lessons along the way both with successes and failures. Let’s be real, if this is what kills the Fediverse then the Fediverse was doomed from the start.
This is all early days and I’m just enjoying the ride. It’s really just refreshing that it’s not some VC backed mega corp making these decision.