I would suggest looking into TiniMiniMicro project.
And considering ProxMox as a platform. It will save you your nerves so much. Spin up a VM/LXC in a few seconds, play with it, delete it. Make a snapshot before update, if something fails - revert back. I’ve tried so many new projects because of how easy it is to do it.
I would suggest looking into TiniMiniMicro used PC and let NAS do NAS things. Try to get a PC with decent number of thread and put as much RAM as it supports. Install ProxMox on it and go nuts. Learn Linux TV has a great series of videos on it.