I had the need to perform a few different tasks, such as monitoring solar panels, download torrents/emule, run vpn servers, aggregate two different ADSL connections, share media files, backup data.
I decided to build my own mini-server to host all the services needed to meet my requirements.
I preferred to build a virtualizzation server, and than install multiple OSes. This choice partially derives from me having already 3 different OS installations on two old PCs. I migrated these on the new server as virtual machines.