Will this be overkill or otherwise not recommended for someone who is new and just starting to learn?
My goal is to have something I can grow into, but initially I'd like to host a few VMs, game servers, and a have place to store content. I'd also like to host a PLEX server in the future as well but might buy a separate piece of hardware for it specifically down the road. Thanks in advance for taking the time to help a newbie!
Unless you get your power for free (or a free rack server), you’d be better off just building a tower to start with more modern, power efficient parts.
Also, you didn’t mention if you had a rack, if you don’t, definitely avoid rack mount servers for now.