It was ok but their timely demise and gosh of custom hardware seemed to prematurely end the project

I gotta second ikea. Though frankly, every brand will be slightly different in the color balance. If you want matching, you gotta stick to one brand it seems..

Ooo kinda looks like netapp rails, fun

On Proxmox, I use the built-in system + storing it to my Synology NAS (RS1221+). I use Active Backup for business (filesync) to back up the Proxmox config files, and also backup the husband's PC and my work PC.