HBA expander or second server?

[Spies]

I have several hard drives which have been rotated out of my server for bigger ones, I don't have any more bays in my case, I don't have enough pcie slots either as I'm not using server grade hardware (and don't intend to upgrade any time soon).

 

So, I would need to get either a Silverstone 380B or Fractal Node 304.

 

This leaves me in a tricky position in the quest for more space, my Dell perc already has both connections used, I can't put another HBA in as I don't have any full size pcie slots left and even if I did, it would be getting filled with an Nvidia card for Plex transcoding.

 

I could remove one of the connections on the perc, connect that to a floating expander in the other case and then run a cable back in for the 4 drives that were connected originally.

 

Or I could build a second low powered machine, as it will only be a NAS and map the drives to my main server using unassigned devices.

 

What would you do?