Help me Hive IT experts; NAS Server questions.

I am sure there are enough experts here that can quickly answer my questions, one of them being @dragosroua:

I want to set up a server/storage in my home wLan network. I want to have one part easy accessible for movies and music via wLan stream, and another one pw protected and maybe encrypted for my backups. Both with access for me and my partner, running Linux Mint on our laptops.

No automatic backup needed, I do all manually.
I'll connect the server via ethernet to our modem.

Questions:

• Do you think FreeNAS is an ok solution foe someone having basic skills (I do know how to use commandline)? Any other recommendations?
• Any recommendations for a NAS server? It should be silent, and it should be able to expand when I run out of space. To start with I'd be ok with ~ 2TB
• What harddrives would you recommend? SATA or SSD?
• How easy is it to access the server remotely?

I am happy if the budget does not exceed € 400, but ok to spend a bit more if it must be.

Hope you can help, thanks in advance ;)