[dad911]

A long time ago we had a windows server in our office, set up by a small company (tenant at the time of set-up) who 'kept the secrets'.

A few years later it crashed (well, it was hacked as a mail relay server because of my idiot brother-in-law)

Knowing nothing about linux, or email/file servers, I picked up a 'server' distribution of linux they had on the shelves at Barnes & Nobles, and figured I'd give it a go. I was able to replace the functions of the windows server on a spare PC in a weekend.

A few years later, (against my protests) My brother/partner was sold on a 'Professional Server' Windows based Dell system.

Rinse & repeat.

Now I use a Synology box (linux based)

tl;dr - A linux set up will be faster and more reliable. There will be a learning curve. The biggest change will be learning the linux equivalents of any software you use, and if you 'need' a specific program, you may not find an equivalent that runs on linux.