Ideas for a redundant Mac mini

Apologies for what's probably going to be a loaded question.

I ended up with a new M2 base Mac mini and after thinking about giving it to a friend/family member or selling it, I'm leaning towards neither option because it doesn't make sense with the formers' current setups, and the resale vale right now just doesn't seem appealing if I can justify keeping it.

I currently have an iMac and a MacBook so I'm set as far as workstations go, but I'm trying to think of other outside the box options.

So far, I've considered using it for all of the following:

• A Plex server which my iMac is currently acting as
• A home server connected to an external drive for saving/accessing files to within my home
• A home VPN access point to connect to for accessing files remotely
• Automated backups of specific folders/drives from Window PCs outside of my home (is this possible and if so feasible)

I can really think of much else so I'm hoping someone here may have some creative advice or give opinions on if it's a useful option to hang onto it or if it will most likely collect dust with my current iMac acting as the Plex server and easily being able to share files between both Macs as is, and backing up files to the iMac with an external drive hasn't been an issue at all yet. I'm really interested in some things a dedicated server could do that I might not be aware of. I guess I'm hoping there are big options there that I haven't thought of yet.

I will say if I can have some kind of configuration for Windows PCs to automatically do continuous backups of drives or folders, even if that's the only thing it would be devoted to, that would be enough of a reason for me to keep it.

Thanks for taking the time to read over this. I need to work on brushing up on home server benefits and macOS equipment server benefits specifically.