There’s a youtuber that goes by the name Wolfgang’s Channel. He’s basically got a series on making on making efficient NAS’s.

Basically, in terms of watts consumed, it’s better to not have an HBA card installed since they can prevent the system from preventing lower C states when idle. Thus having a board with more SATA ports is better since you won’t need an HBA card.

Here’s a link to known power efficient setups.

If you still want to go the add in route, I think the consensus is that SATA add in cards aren’t as reliable as HBA cards, but HBA cards are more power hungry. Here’s a link to HBA add in cards’ power consumption.

Also, if you have HDDs, 5400 rpm drives consume less power than 7200 rpm drives.

At a certain point you’re spending more money than you save in your power bill, but I can’t deny that its fun making your build as efficient as possible.

I tried both and for some reason Baikal just played nicer. I’m sure either is fine though.

Nextcloud was too bulky for my needs.