No, you use it as a media server. A media center can also be a media server but often is not.

If your pi is just reading files from the network, it’s fine. If it’s serving files, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Use the right tool for the job.

A raspberry pi isn’t and has never been a good choice for a server.

For an appliance like a pi hole, home assistant, or media center playing files from a real Nas it’s fine.

This. I get a wild hair every couple years to daily drive Linux and there’s always something small but crucial that breaks within a day or so and there’s no way for me, a relative novice, to fix it.

Example: I picked up a old ThinkPad on ebay last year. I put Ubuntu on it and after a day or two the wifi just stops working. No error messages. Nothing. I tried digging into the settings via ui with no luck. Googling didn’t help because I couldn’t tell what was helpful, unhelpful, or would have been helpful but is five years out of date.

After a few days of trying to make it work, I just threw on windows and haven’t had any issues since.