While I don't use it myself my son has a HP micro server (G8) which is very handy. I was tossing up between it and an NAS (a gift) for his own needs and we soon came to the decision the micro server was much more usable while still having the capacity of a small NAS.
https://www.auspcmarket.com.au/syste...-1yr-warranty/
While this isn't a cheap option these little units are amazing for the money if that's the route anyone should choose to take. They can be had cheaper shopping around new and also much cheaper used.
If you don't want the computing side a NAS is better than portable storage.
If looking at an used NAS (I buy specifically used due to finances (disability pensioner)) be wary any discs marked as good will likely be on their way out and figure in the cost of replacement hard drives. The NAS drives are generally a higher quality than standard computer hard drives:
https://blog.synology.com/xmas-wishl...s-for-your-nas
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on the counterside if i'd gone for the external hdd option wouldve been far, far simpler, cheaper but with slightly less redundancy and utility. dealers choice!
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I believe but I'll have to check with my son later (he runs his own servers and programs) that if you run any of the server versions on a dedicated computer external drives can be used in a RAID configuration with internal hard drives. For me that would be my running a dual boot system so I still had my wonderful Windows 7. My son runs several variants of server editions I believe (I know nothing about servers or programming because I don't want to know) over several machines.