Shimitar , 3 months ago

Two or more ssds, the biggest you can afford, on a j-bod USB3 or USB-C enclosure. Raid them together on Linux software raid.
As hardware, I use a power horse laptop, its more practical, but I had it spare. Buy a nice compromise between CPU power and power comsumpion, that depends on your feelings.

And use Gentoo :)

I have documented most of my steps here https://wiki.gardiol.org