DaveRo wrote: I see you can get 'mini PCs' which are somewhat equivalent to a RaspberryPi and run Windows 11. Mostly ~£150 but there's one on Amazon for £80 - brand 'PELADN'. It's unobtrusive, but you'd have to work out how to access it. Remote Windows Desktop, if there is such a thing?

These mini-PCs have become a lot cheaper since I first looked at the Intel NUC, which were more expensive than a full-sized PC.

To connect using Windows Remote Desktop it (perhaps both PCs) would have to be running Windows 11 Professional - which those PELADN boxes (about £170 on Amazon at the moment) claim to do.

(You don't really need a gui at all. My RPi doesn't have one, but I'm familiar with using Linux at the command line. Presumably you could control a Windows server from the command line: perhaps it can emulate PC DOS! You'd need a display and keyboard to set it up, but not permanently.)

Running a full-blown Windows 11 PC - albeit a tiny one - just to run a USB disk seems a bit OTT. There's the requirement to keep it updated and secure. But like my RaspberryPi - now in its third incarnation - you'd probably find other things for it to do.