It really depends on the job, I guess. I wore the Danner Reckonings for about 2 years straight and they were a little rough looking but still in great shape. The tip of the boot where the sole curves up the front was starting to peel. The worst I did with them was mountain climbing and some very wet environments.
Some of the dudes I worked with were sent to an area with a lot of lava rock, which absolutely shreds boots.
Seconding the other user’s post, it’s just storage. You can use it temporarily for the Plex server but I highly recommend offloading that task to a real computer.
A used Optiplex is usually the go-to because it’s low power and capable of doing the job. Just make sure it has enough RAM to handle the containers you wanna put on it.
Docker is a little bit of learning but you’ll get the hang of it. I found docker-compose to be much easier to learn. Portainer or Dockge can help by giving you a GUI, if that’s your preferred style (like me).
There’s no hard limit or standard, but I think 14 TB might be the largest you could find in a consumer HDD. The WD EasyStore goes on sale pretty often and sells for a good deal. Those should be quiet and already come in an external case. Look for reviews about it before buying.
The sound is determined by what kind of drive it is. Consumer drives are for in-home use and are usually quiet. Enterprise drives are for dedicated server rooms or data centers and can get loud because it’s loud in there already.
I would recommend sticking with consumer level HDDs if this is a concern. The cost per TB isn’t as good.
I bought a 14 TB Seagate Exos and put it in a Fractal R5, which is a very good noise insulating case. I can hear clicking from anywhere on the same floor as that machine if I listen for it.
You could maybe pair two consumer drives together in JBOD to get the space you want, but that’s more expensive.