The system has a fanless power supply and GPU making it virtually silent. When it's idle it consumes relatively little power as a server. Admittedly with 2GB of RAM and the latest Gnome/Debian it's beginning to lose it's snappiness as a desktop, but it's still usable. Unfortunately suitable DIMMs aren't easy to find anymore, as a memory upgrade would restore that responsiveness and extend its life by a few more years. Chances are I will have to replace it in the next year or so.
Based on the final comment in GP post, it's because they have information on all of those mediums. If you've been in computing for a few decades, you'll find dusty floppy disks, zip disks, and the like hiding in weird corners. Having the ability to easily read and move that data can be invaluable.
Personally, I can't remember how many old disks and pieces of my computing history that I've thrown out because I can't read them anymore.
The system has a fanless power supply and GPU making it virtually silent. When it's idle it consumes relatively little power as a server. Admittedly with 2GB of RAM and the latest Gnome/Debian it's beginning to lose it's snappiness as a desktop, but it's still usable. Unfortunately suitable DIMMs aren't easy to find anymore, as a memory upgrade would restore that responsiveness and extend its life by a few more years. Chances are I will have to replace it in the next year or so.