Off-site backups, Plex and Jellyfin libraries, Nextcloud, MinIO buckets, log archives and seed boxes need space far more than they need speed. Hard drives still deliver the most terabytes per dollar, and a dedicated box means nobody else's workload shares your disks.
Many listings pair a small SSD for the operating system with big hard drives for data, which keeps the system snappy while the bulk storage stays cheap. Multiple drives also let you run RAID 5, 6, 10 or ZFS for redundancy.
Common questions
How does this compare with S3 or Backblaze?
Object storage charges per GB stored and often per GB downloaded. A storage server costs the same whether it is full or empty, and restores do not come with a bandwidth bill.
Your server is already racked and waiting
Pick a machine, choose your OS at checkout and pay for the first month. No setup contract, no annual lock-in.