Clarification on working with NAS/cloud storage/moving files around

I'm trying to streamline my workflow. My photos are in disparate places so just trying to have a cohesive workflow. I have: 1. external thunderbolt SSD on my Macbook pro with about 600GB of pictures. 2. 250 gigs of pics on one drive from my phones over the years.

It seems like in order to catalogue the onedrive pics I need to have them be downloaded vs. symlinks in the cloud. I have a mac mini that I'm using as a file server which has more space than my desktop.

I can sync the mini to download all those pics from onedrive locally. If I work with the files over the network on On1 (working on my mbp but files stored on mini) will this be an issue with syncing to onedrive (say i'm not at home and want my laptop to access the files and edits stored on onedrive)

Also, If synchronize a folder stored on my external drive with a folder on the mini as long as I synchronize the photos and edits I can work on them remotely on the external drive but from home work over the network on the mini?