Creating a dedicated machine for testing software/storing malware

I'm thinking for a while now to create a dedicated machine for storing everything I consider being sketchy. Basically anything I would not download on my machine, from malware to suspicious software, ebooks, etc.

The features I want to have for now are:

• Scanning the files with VirusTotal API
  
• Maybe setup Cuckoo Sandbox/Hyper-V or other sanbox/virtualization software
  
• Creating a web portal for throwing files to VirusTotal script and for managing malware easily
  

So, the main questions are

• Do you think an old laptop would do the job? Considering that I don't want a lot of VMs for now
  
• Are you aware of other projects like this that are documented and that maybe I could have a look at them?
  
• How would you go about doing this, in respect of hardware and software?
  
• Maybe I should have 2 machine: one for managing the DB for malware, setting up the web apps and scripts. And other for virtualization with no Internet connection at all?
  
• If the above case is true, would you go for a Raspberry PI with an external SSD for the first machine?
  

I would really appreciate some discussion regarding this problem. Maybe ( if I find the time ), I could document the process of creating this in a thread after I finish it. Thanks !

Tabnks for the help. i like the way you talked to me