You can do it. I use a powered USB hub and a raspberry pi, and 5 hard drives.
It is a mess of cables but was simple enough.
I also sprang for a UPS because most filesystem’s I tried like zfs and btrfs didn’t appreciate random brownouts from running 4 drives off the pi itself.
Right now they’re xfs and used for a minio install and torrent storage
because the location where the job is, is expensive. and you can’t commute in that far into the job, without raising the rents in the suburbs and gentrifying them, too. where high paying jobs are, the market realizes they can raise the cost of living.