Whew, at least smoke test was passed 
This thing will be an Intel Atom based fileserver with a near zero noise from it (I hope).
Motherboard: some Intel Atom motherboard with ITX formfactor and with 4 SATA interfaces, and gigabit Ethernet controller. PSU: some Chinese PSU which should emit 259W of power — enough for motherboard and 4 HDDs (I hope) 
@xavier_hm So for "worth it" you have to check how much would it cost to get a proper mini #ATX or #ITX server against the cost of these old laptops. If a old ATX/ITX server cannot be obtained then these laptops are a steal and "worth it". These laptops will have mobile CPUs and not server CPUs. Again balance the cost of acquisition, that is crucial.
Yes, going headless would free up resources but you would need to be comfy with terminal.
Finally please harden SSH and the server.
In the middle of process of cleaning rust from my new old case for another Intel Atom based home server. WD-40 and sandpaper do their job 
This case was cheap enough for second hand thing from some wet office (or warehouse) but requires some work. At least it didn't cost for 100500 roubles like some "gaming" cases or "skeleton cases" (basically just a T-shaped open panel with a bed for motherboard. EMI? Lol, it is "legacy" and "outdated"/s 
)
I was looking at #3dprint #itx case and found this nice looking project from 2018:
https://eclecti.cc/hardware/fully-parametric-3d-printable-computer-case
The name looked a bit familiar, so I checked the project page: https://github.com/eclecticc/ParametricCase
And indeed - it's from the Framework founder
When looking into small form factor cases to build a Mini-ITX PC for my Rift, I found a few things: Like any other hobby, there is an obsessive (in a good way) community of small form factor enthusiasts. The metric they optimize for is case size in liters. Often, people are stuck sub-optimally limiting their
On the one hand, it's super nice having a nice slim ITX computer now (and finally ditching Windows!). Less footprint is good! But I guess I didn't factor in needing to store extra HDDs in an external enclosure, thus resulting in a technically wider footprint.
Eugene 
Archie1
Michal 
Just… Josh 
Kevin Karhan 
Uncle hadsn
Derek Humphrey