Asus pn50, awesome mini PC. Its also very silent, small, and looks good, so I keep it in the living room, running all the time.
External drive, 18 TB
hosts bunch of web services 24/7 - calibre, jelyfin, qbittorent, hfs web server to host files, tailscale vpn etc. The 4k projector, TV, and HiFi are connected to it. I can even do programming on it from the sofa when I feel like it.
great for surfing the web, hording, media and even games.
basically 0 maintenance
I hate dedicated stuff like synology, and non-applications they provide - its too much work and configuration, too expensive too and they feel toyish. I prefer OTB full OS (Windows 10 in my case) with normal tools (for example foobar player, vscode editor, doublecmd file manager, mvp video player, normal package manager) and easy to use and replace stuff. For example, I use another external drive for periodic backups, with custom powershell scripts that do incremental backups and verify them, disconnected all the time until backup should be done (to protect from viruses and surges). I can take backup drive with me for offline consumption of all the data, or access my network via VPN (you definitelly need offline access to your data as internet connection may suck when you are not at home)
Its all under 1k EUR.