If you want to get the same resiliency as a NAS, you need to have multiple hard drives so a mini PC won't cut it. Single drive redundancy is an oxymoron because once the disk goes, so does your redundancy. That said, if you are OK with single disk because of cloud backups, no issue. I would consider how long it would take me to restore it all should the disk go. Its not as fast as you think. Especially when you get into the terabytes conversation.
If you want to run Plex for media streaming, you'll find the resource consumption of windows just for existing plus all the other things running may impact your quality of digital life should more than one person stream something at the same time. Just check the number of "Service Host:" processes running on your windows machine. All the windows specific ones add up after a while.
Windows updates not only patch security flaws but also introduce new features or remove old ones. This can sometimes impact what you are doing with it because they try to steer you to their ecosystem of products with the changes they introduce. It can also break something that works because it isn't a dedicated appliance meant to service that one function.
Multiple NICs. I think there might be mini PCs that come with that nowadays and PCs in general can run multiple NICs. However, Windows networking used to be notoriously bad at managing multiple network card connectivity. Not sure if that is still true as I don't work with Windows too much anymore but if it is and that was in your plans, might want to make sure it can do what you think it can do with the version of windows you get. They still have Windows Pro vs Windows Home right?
Those are some of things I would consider. In any case, your post sounds like your mind is already made up. In the end, you will have to live with it so what you think is really what matters.
If you want to get the same resiliency as a NAS, you need to have multiple hard drives so a mini PC won't cut it. Single drive redundancy is an oxymoron because once the disk goes, so does your redundancy. That said, if you are OK with single disk because of cloud backups, no issue. I would consider how long it would take me to restore it all should the disk go. Its not as fast as you think. Especially when you get into the terabytes conversation.
If you want to run Plex for media streaming, you'll find the resource consumption of windows just for existing plus all the other things running may impact your quality of digital life should more than one person stream something at the same time. Just check the number of "Service Host:" processes running on your windows machine. All the windows specific ones add up after a while.
Windows updates not only patch security flaws but also introduce new features or remove old ones. This can sometimes impact what you are doing with it because they try to steer you to their ecosystem of products with the changes they introduce. It can also break something that works because it isn't a dedicated appliance meant to service that one function.
Multiple NICs. I think there might be mini PCs that come with that nowadays and PCs in general can run multiple NICs. However, Windows networking used to be notoriously bad at managing multiple network card connectivity. Not sure if that is still true as I don't work with Windows too much anymore but if it is and that was in your plans, might want to make sure it can do what you think it can do with the version of windows you get. They still have Windows Pro vs Windows Home right?
Those are some of things I would consider. In any case, your post sounds like your mind is already made up. In the end, you will have to live with it so what you think is really what matters.