I would build a cheap PC based on a G series Intel CPU. The G7400 is cheap and will handle anything you want to transcode, plus won’t get bottlenecked with IO and other processes you might want to run later like the Arr stack. You probably don’t need more than 8GB of RAM. This will give you lots of flexibility to choose the right OS which suits you, which software you want, upgrades, and especially HDDs down the road (if you get a case with HDD slots). I started small and ended up with 15 disks over the years.

Unraid ($250) is one option but it’s expensive and buggy. TrueNAS is a very popular ZFS based solution which is free. Windows is also a surprisingly good option. It’s your lowest effort option by far. You can replicate Unraid functionality with SnapRAID and DrivePool ($50).

ChatGPT can be surprisingly useful when tackling the endless bugs and weird and unexpected differences on each Linux distro. I think you’re missing out. It shaves off 30-40% of the time it takes me to arrive at the right solution. It’s obviously not omniscient, but it provides a lot of ideas which I had not considered. Usually one of those paths works.

As long as they don’t get snow or high temperatures, clover might be okay. Problem is that most of the U.S. gets either snow or high temperatures. There’s no way to prevent the die-off with snow, but you’ll need to irrigate frequently and copiously to keep clover alive in high temperatures. It’s a big waste of clean water, IMHO.

Depending on the type, grass is much hardier.

Clover dies easily. Whether that’s people walking on it, temperature extremes, too little water, snow. That makes a lawn look patchy. It can be used in certain places, but definitely not all.