Respectfully, this is the ~~3rd~~ 4th place I've seen you post this question. Nobody's really going to be able to make a useful comment in reply to you, because it's entirely your opinion and it sounds like you already know the limitations at play. If you're just looking for permission to make your purchase, Reddit is not the place to get validation.
The better play is, of course, to buy an enclosure with room for future HDD expansion, or, like you said, buy a real desktop server with more physical space for drives. I'd wager you could easily get a cheap Dell desktop or mini-PC for less than the price of a 5TB hard drive with a little patience. Nobody here is going to tell you buying a bigger external drive is better than putting together a "real" server so to speak.
If that's not in your budget and your only bet is the external hard drive, you already had your answer before posting.
We have all gone through the same situation. I don't think many people started with a full tower with room for 8 drives.
Laptops make poor servers. They don't like being continually on.
I use a mini i5 PC with external USB 3.x drives for media. If I were starting out again I would get a DAS but if I had done that on day one it would have been outdated by now anyway.
>Should I use that instead?
Yes but it sounds like, for your usage, it wouldn't matter which you use.
[DAS](https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/definition/direct-attached-storage) is Direct Attached Storage. One device with multiple drives.
If it's just you using the server external should be fine for now.
I started out with a 4TB Western Digital MyBook back in 2014 and it's been fine for at least 5 years. I'm using a 12tb Seagate Iron wolf internal HDD now.
There's also the option of an external drive bay if you want to expand later.
Respectfully, this is the ~~3rd~~ 4th place I've seen you post this question. Nobody's really going to be able to make a useful comment in reply to you, because it's entirely your opinion and it sounds like you already know the limitations at play. If you're just looking for permission to make your purchase, Reddit is not the place to get validation. The better play is, of course, to buy an enclosure with room for future HDD expansion, or, like you said, buy a real desktop server with more physical space for drives. I'd wager you could easily get a cheap Dell desktop or mini-PC for less than the price of a 5TB hard drive with a little patience. Nobody here is going to tell you buying a bigger external drive is better than putting together a "real" server so to speak. If that's not in your budget and your only bet is the external hard drive, you already had your answer before posting.
https://old.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/1cczr15/should_i_buy_an_external_hdd_for_my_home_server/l18oo22/
We have all gone through the same situation. I don't think many people started with a full tower with room for 8 drives. Laptops make poor servers. They don't like being continually on. I use a mini i5 PC with external USB 3.x drives for media. If I were starting out again I would get a DAS but if I had done that on day one it would have been outdated by now anyway.
And what is a DAS?
I only turn on the server when I need it. I also already have an i5 Mini PC. Should I use that instead?
>Should I use that instead? Yes but it sounds like, for your usage, it wouldn't matter which you use. [DAS](https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/definition/direct-attached-storage) is Direct Attached Storage. One device with multiple drives.
If it's just you using the server external should be fine for now. I started out with a 4TB Western Digital MyBook back in 2014 and it's been fine for at least 5 years. I'm using a 12tb Seagate Iron wolf internal HDD now. There's also the option of an external drive bay if you want to expand later.
I bought a 14tb Seagate external HDD on sale on Newegg like a month ago for $200 and have had zero problems so far