If two are dead, you probably should get at least one of them replaced. I’m assuming you are running a RAID 6 with zero redundancy at this point.

When the bubble bursts, used computer components are going to be real cheap. Even just a few liquidated data centers will provide a ton of used supply. Even if they don’t part them up, that is still a bunch of supply that won’t be drawing on new supply.

Hmmm, now that is not something I’m qualified to answer. Hopefully someone else speaks up.

Debian and Mint are both good. The former is aimed at servers and the latter is aimed at desktop use. They are otherwise very similar under the hood.

That explains why I kept getting lost.

Anything specific I could help out with?

Got it down to Ubuntu or Mint

Mint is good. Avoid Ubuntu; snaps just make your life hard. You don’t need to know what those are, and if you avoid Ubuntu you never will need to know.

• This assumes latency between one’s current location and the remote location is almost non-existent. It isn’t.
• This assumes we have fast and available internet all the time. I sure don’t.
• This assumes we can use the remote computer in every way we use our current computers. No way.
• This assumes, as you point out, they won’t be greedy once they control everyone’s machines. They will be.
• This assumes they won’t censor ‘dangerous’ sites on these machines. They will.

I will happily pay more for freedom from the corporation.

My suggestion: Buy 3x 28TB drives. Mirror the data to them. Then move them off site.

The off-site location could either be a family member’s home where you can then sync to the drives over the internet. Or in a PO box nearby that you retrieve them from time to time to re-sync the data.