yo_scottie_oh

My current setup is two always-on hard drives hooked up to this two-bay external hard drive docking station plugged into a laptop via USB cable for whatever network sharing I may need. This has been good enough so far, but I'm anticipating the need to expand down the road, i.e. adding a third drive. When that time comes, part of me thinks I oughta just spring for the 4-bay version of what I already have and keep on keeping on. Another part of me thinks maybe I should plan a new build in a mid-ATX case w/ 4 or 5 HDD mounting slots for future expandability.

One thing about the external docking station that appeals to me is how portable it is, meaning if I ever want to spring for a beefier laptop or one of those thin clients, I can just plug the HDD docking station into the new host and away I go. Another nice thing about laptops and SFF equipment is how energy efficient they are. On the other hand, planning a new ATX build w/ HDDs mounted internally would enable me to plan the whole thing top to bottom w/ whichever components I like, but I'm a tad concerned about how feasible it is to achieve the same level of power efficiency w/ an ATX build compared to a laptop/SFF/thin client w/ external docking station.

Has anyone else out there had this dilemma, and which way did you go? Any advice or warnings about what might come back to bite me down the road if I stick w/ the external docking station or go w/ an ATX build?

Update:

I want to thank everyone who weighed in in the comments. Based on your feedback, I've decided to hunt for good deals by searching for usff, mini pc, and/or thin client on used marketplaces. Looks like I should be able to nab something very serviceable for my purposes for around $50 no problem. Again, this is not for a production environment, just something I can throw on the corner of my desk and kinda forget that it's there except when I want to follow some random tutorial on the internet.

For those who suggested I use VMs for this, I hear ya. However, I'd like to get as close as possible to the real deal (bare metal if you will) so that I don't have to futz around w/ passing through graphics or networking or anything like that. Tbh configuring VMs properly is almost more difficult for me than just working on a spare bare metal unit.

Thanks again!

Original post:

In my self hosting journey, which is very much in its infancy mind you, many times I've longed for an extra machine I can use to try following tutorials on setting up samba shares, home assistant, what have you without having to worry about messing up my main machine and having to clean up after myself. As for acquiring such hardware on the cheap, I keep reading how the laptopocalypse w/ Windows 10 end of life will flood the markets w/ literally unlimited free e-waste bro!!! But my own experience hunting these EOL once in a lifetime deals has been more frownie face than happy face. Lots of $100+ listings and, idk that just seems like a lot to ask for something like that.

So just for fun I searched eBay for "raspberry pi" and came across this listing for a raspberry pi 3 w/ 1 GB RAM for $25. 1 GB of RAM seems like not very much, but then again I'm not trying to break the sound barrier here, I just want something that can sit on my desk basically unnoticed and hook it up to my KVM switch so I can switch to it from time to time, like whenever I want to try following a tutorial and not losing any sleep if I fail (and I fail often).

I've also kinda always had a little bit of envy from not being in the raspberry pi club, so this is my shot at getting into the club. I think I'm going to spring for this one, so my question for the audience is, but like honestly am I about to piss $25 down the drain? Would this be good enough for my purposes or is the 1 GB of RAM going to bottleneck me like a boss?

Sorry for the run on sentences, my brain's tired today.