So currently ive got a 4 bay synology DS918+. Its got 4 8tb drives, and although I may end up upgrading them, id like to be able to just add on more drives and keep whats currently in there.

Ive got no problem building a NAS from scratch…but my question is would a cheap san from r/homelabsales or online somewhere be a better option? Id rather cheap out and get one of those. Ive got 2 vacant servers with 128gb memory, I need to deploy one of them in the lab anyways. Id hookup the SAN to one of those. Just need some general advice on SANs. Is it even worth it with power draw?

If I were to build a NAS I feel like id end up having a shit time having to setup a bunch of HBAs and all the cables.

TLDR: I need more bays!