Looking to build a NAS/combination DAS if possible

[anarchy99]

Hello,

I'm wanting to build a NAS to consolidate my tons of hard drives, and I need to know what NAS software to use

I want it to be like a DROBO where it uses a portion of the space for parity but the drives can be swappable  and I can mix-and-match drive sizes

Seems pretty straightforward if anyone has a pros and cons on which software I should use for that let me know. 

 

If I could I would also want to be a DAS for faster file transfers at times either FireWire or thunderbolt (which in theory should be possible because either and can be a host device unlike USB)

So far ive found zero pieces of software that claim to have that capability though but there's some smart people here that know better than me so I'm hoping someone can help

 

thanks :)