There is of course a relevant xkcd page

I have been loving these

I use an iPad. Apple doesn’t seem to care where the file came from, they just make it readable. I was somewhat mad about it, as I have never been an Apple fan, but the actual experience of using the iPad as a reader converted me.

I’ve run a number of generations of servers at home. Generally speaking you just need a raid solution of some sort (motherboard solution, external add-on with interface board, what have you), slap an OS on it and adapt your device usage to include it. It depends on what hardware/software you have available to you. That being said, the last two have been synology models. They’re easy to use, and at some level include an external interface to their expansion cab. I can stream straight to my phone and access my server from anywhere and it has tons of other features I’m unclear on how to use, but I’ve seen plex on the install list, and it runs Linux under the hood.