NAS/Streamer or server/player?

I recommend looking at Aurender. I have pursued high end digital sound since the advent of the CD. After owning an Auralic Aries G2 streamer, and a number of lessor solutions I got a Aurender N100, the sound quality is simply amazing so after auditioning their amazing N10 model $8K (and lots of research)… I can recommend it without qualification. I chose their flagship the W20SE (~$22K). This is all these guys do and have it down to an art. You will find many of them all over audio shows, they are the standard for companies to use unless they make their own. Surprisingly Linn also makes world class streamers..

Typically they come with some internal solid state storage, with options for more. I have NAS… which is accessible… but I just copied it into my Aurrender in case the network is down… I have used it once over the last year as there is no sonic advantage of internally stored files or CDs… so I just use Qobuz.

Aurenders are built without compromise to maximize sound quality. Streamed music in my system now is at the same quality level as my great analog rig (see my systems under my ID). Completely changed what and how I listened to music, since I now have access to nearly infinite music for the price of a CD per month. Their Conductor app for controlling and managing music is great. I have 28tb of storage at home.. no longer use it for music.

I recommend Melco.  It's a great NAS and can also be a server.  It sounded much better than the Synolgy NAS that it replaced

Get a synology NAS and a Sonore or Lumin U1.  Keep it simple.  Both will be a great roon streamer and the NAS should be RAID.  Way under your budget you listed.  

Added a Lumin D2 with Synology Ds918+ NAS and 16TB’s storage in conjunction with Roon Nucleus +.  Liked the Lumin so much I upgraded to the T2 when I added my Audio Research Ref6SE preamp.  With Lumin app you can play Tidal and Qobuz direct into preamp or amp which sounds better than going through Roon. Good luck and let us know what you end up doing. 

The difference here is in how the devices handle their jobs.  The digital front end needs to do a few things.  It needs to access your local files, deal with a very volatile internet and the decompress/unfold your files as it serves data to the DAC.  

The first step managing files and dealing with the internet is very processor intensive.  This is where a server really excels.  

The rendering (decompression/unfold) is far less processor intensive and many manufacturers argue that to much power here introduces noise.  

All of this has to be clocked and synchronized with the clock in the DAC.  

Given these points above, I fall firmly in the server/player camp.  I don't love the pure streamer approach nor do I like a single computer/server approach though I feel a single server outperforms a single streamer, especially at the high end.  

I like splitting things into different parts.  This is what Antipodes does in their higher end servers.  The K30 and K50 have two computers, one that is higher powered than the other.  Another approach is to get a single server (Roon Nucleus, Antipodes S40, Antipodes K41, etc...) and pair it with a Roon Endpoint like a Bricasti M5 or Weiss DSP 501/502.