OpenMediaVault VS Radarr

You might want to consider the previously mentioned MergerFS and SnapRAID, or MDADM and LVM for your setup. OpenMediaVault [https://www.openmediavault.org/ is a solid choice in this regard. Additionally, if you're planning to run something like Proxmox, you could look into deploying Starwind CVM on top of it. Pretty much like in this guide: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library/starwind-virtual-san-vsan-configuration-guide-for-proxmox-vsan-deployed-as-a-controller-virtual-machine-cvm/ .

You would better to install OMV instead. It's a ready to use fileserver solution with web interface.

So I'm working on a similar setup with an ancient desktop my in-laws were getting rid of. I installed OpenMediaVault directly to the hard drive (it's so old that I assume it wouldn't work too well as a hypervisor), with a 4TB external HDD attached. OMV supports Docker by means of a plug-in and I'm running a Jellyfin container with no issues at all. I'm still manually downloading everything to the HDD but *arr containers are my next step, as well as setting up a gluetun container to route all that through a VPN.

That is possible (it's automated to a certain extent). It also depends on the NAS OS. Unraid, for example, can work with drives of different sizes while using the largest one for parity. TrueNAS uses ZFS so you won't be able to just add a drive to your RAIDZ and expand it. There's also openmediavault: https://www.openmediavault.org/ that uses Linux Software RAID and you can add a new drive there but you can't combine drives of different sizes. And there's also Starwinds NAS that supports both Linux Software RAID and ZFS: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/san-and-nas. Plus, I would avoid SMR drives in RAID: https://nascompares.com/answer/list-of-wd-cmr-and-smr-hard-drives-hdd/

I'd put it like that: if you have a spare PC, then it's definitely worth trying. I would also look into openmediavault (minimal RAM needs): https://www.openmediavault.org/ and Starwinds NAS (supports both ZFS and Linux software RAID): https://www.starwindsoftware.com/san-and-nas

Movies: Radarr

I use Nginx for Sonarr/Radarr would I see any general performance benefit when loading their webpages in general? If so, what level of compression would be ideal for this case?

In the /r/selfhosted community Sonarr and Radarr are staples, but their code isn't particularly great and there are lots of bugs people just deal with. Radarr forked Sonarr, their interface is similar but they suffer from disjoint bugs.

There may be better places, since I've just stuck to the same one for years now (and don't need them often enough to look into alternatives), but I usually use either subscene or opensubtitles. There are also programs that can automate it like bazarr, but it requires you to also use Sonarr/Radarr.

Radarr: Automatically downloads movies.

Radarr is for movies. Sonarr is for TV shows.

Github

- Sonarr & Radarr for sailing the sea / keeping those media libraries growing ( https://sonarr.tv/, https://radarr.video/ )