Hello! I have decided to at least start informing myself more on the complexities of running a home data server. I already have a server which I picked up for free to run a minecraft server (which I've been doing for years) but it's an old hunk of junk. I decided to look into its specs and it has 4sata ports, 2 pci-e 16x connectors, and 1 pci-e 1x connector.
Now, as I'm a total noob I've no clue what any of this means. Is this any good? And can I use whatever cheap dated drives I can find? It'd mainly serve as a backup because I don't trust my laptop to safely hold everything. (It's a lump of trash holding on by a thread). I've got a pile of old 160gb and 500gb HDDs laying around and was wondering if these would work as a first attempt. Any tips and advice is dearly welcome.