I got a tramontina set at Costco. Not sure where you are, but they usually have several sets to choose from.

Three years later very happy, would totally recommend. Good price, holding up very well.

May as well get used to the cold weather by moving north since we will have to run to Canada next.

I have built and maintained all manner of home servers using inexpensive used hardware. Any PC or old laptop can do this stuff. Unless you’re doing something crazy on them, I’ve not encountered a lot of situations that I could not sort out. Usually throwing some more memory and storage into them solves most issues.

I ran a used desktop machine with an i3 processor (retired school system) for YEARS as my NAS with zero issues beyond adding a little cooling. Did the same with a firewall, worked for ages with no issues.

Getting a mini pc is nice if you are putting it in your living room, but there are still many choices for small form factor devices. Not quite as small, but still pretty small. Lots of them were used as POS terminals at stores. Wipe 'em, reload and start fresh.

I feel like I slept through the point where everyone decided to stop answering calls, answering doors and generally chose to turn to a life of hermitage. It would have been nice to get an email or something so I at least would have known.

Seems like a dog should be able to handle things like doorbells and people. These are somewhat common things.