I'm looking for an automatic storage system for my Minecraft world, but I'm not sure which design would fit my needs best.
I want a single-item sorter that can eventually handle around 500 different items (although realistically I will probably only need around 350–400). I don't really like multi-item sorters, because I find them harder to organize and understand.
Performance is also a big concern for me. I don't want to use copper golems or other entity-heavy solutions because I'm playing on a potato PC, so I need something that is as lightweight as possible. Water streams would be completely fine if they are still considered a good performance-friendly option.
The system would ideally start with a shulker box unloader and then sort everything into storage.
My dream setup would be something where the storage uses shulker boxes in a modular way. For example, the shulker boxes would already be placed as the active storage, even if they are not completely full yet. Once a shulker box is full and more items come in, it could be moved into a normal storage area, and when I need the storage module again, the shulker box could be placed back automatically. Basically, I like the idea of having storage modules that I can remove and move around with a button instead of having a permanently fixed storage wall.
It doesn't have to be the fastest system possible. I care more about it being reliable, expandable, reasonably cheap, and not too demanding on performance.
What sorter design would you recommend?