If you had to pick a laptop or mini-PC, which one?

I also have a Intel Nuc.

2 ssd hard drives it runs Plex for just my music right now but also does movies.

Connected to my pre by Hdmi. I was recently told about a linear power supply I can get for it that would further improve sound quality, I am considering it but I think it sounds pretty good right now.

I also have an Oppo I can play music from the Nuc with using DLNA. I have the option of playing from my pre off the Nuc using DLNA as well but being able to use Plex, browse and play music on a 75" tv is tough to beat.

Yikes, a castrated CPU...

With a ssd and 16G of memory? Maybe? I wouldn't personally just not enough horse power for my preference and with the cost of CPUs not really worth it.

I would keep all your music on an internal drive or at least a NAS that connects via ethernet. All my flac are on a internal ssd drive in a Intel Nuc I prefer not to use usb.

Pjr

Almost sound like your in IT... we have a common phrase; backup, backup, backup and; Did you backup today? Did you?
All my media is on a second drive then I backup to a second pc then to a external via bat file, bada bing bada boom. People may say its excessive but that first time you lose everything... even if you still have it on CD your looking at weeks, months to rip it all again.

Yes storage always double what you currently need, at least.

I would be curious to know about any lose of sound quality over usb, is your Nuc connected by hdmi? Could you have the same song on the Nuc then play over usb and hdmi and compare?
In the last few days I have revisited playing over DLNA. I currently have my Nuc connected to my pre by hdmi, the Nuc is running Plex. I wanted to compare so tried it from my Oppo using Dlna and preamp using Dlna. Unfortunately there is some improvement, I say unfortunately because over Dlna I lose the nice browsing and playing on the tv experience with Plex.

Intel Nuc from Mitx pc?

That is where I got mine, could have given you a contact. 

So you are liking it? I've had mine a couple of years, I am going to build another custom in a Full Atx case to replace it.