Yup, I've been running an N40L microserver for almost 10 years now. Put 16 gb in it & some hard drives and never looked back. It just works.
I first ran FreeNAS, but eventually moved it to Ubuntu 18.04 so that I could run some containerized services on it (file sharing, Plex, and a remote virtual desktop).
16gb RAM is about right for running ZFS. 8gb worked OK, but I'd notice slowdowns from time to time.
If this machine ever decides to pack it in, I'll get a gen10.
If you ever get the urge to play around with FreeNAS again, they really improved linux emulation and virtualization; I've been pleasantly surprised with how much I can get done with bhyve.
That's only if you feel like tinkering, though; Ubuntu's a great choice as well.
I first ran FreeNAS, but eventually moved it to Ubuntu 18.04 so that I could run some containerized services on it (file sharing, Plex, and a remote virtual desktop).
16gb RAM is about right for running ZFS. 8gb worked OK, but I'd notice slowdowns from time to time.
If this machine ever decides to pack it in, I'll get a gen10.