Large wort chiller for small batches

I am fairly new to brewing, but I can already tell that using an ice bath for cooling my wort is going to get old very quickly. My goals for now are to brew 2.5 gallon batches only as I am the only one drinking the beer and I don't drink it that fast. I am looking into buying a wort chiller and the two most common sizes are 25 and 50 feet. I'm sure for my small batches a 25 foot chiller will work. However, it would be nice to future proof the purchase a little bit so I am wondering if I should just get a 50 foot chiller.

My question is: Is there a downside to having a larger than necessary chiller? I imagine a number of the coils will be above the wort line but I can't see a real downside to that (more surface area should result in more cooling). I would appreciate any thoughts on the matter!

You're thinking in the right direction, Dave.

No. A bigger immersion chiller will not hurt anything. And, as you point out, when you upgrade, you don't need to buy another.

Happy brewing, Dave! I'd love to try one of yours!

Thank you for the information and the kind words!

Just make sure whatever you buy, that it fits in your pot. I made mine and I went with 50' x 3/8" and I have a 10 gallon pot and the top coil comes almost to the top of the pot, but I made sure it fits in my 8 gal pot too, so I had to go taller instead of wider. I figured I'm future proofing too, but honestly, I've started making smaller batches including a 2.5 batch in the 10 gal pot with the 50' chiller. So it can be done.

I think the "thinking ahead" part is awesome. The only thing I would remember is that you sanitize your chiller by dropping it into your boiling wort 10-15 minutes before turning off the heat. If you have coils above the wort line, then they won't get sanitized in the boil. I would definitely find a good way to sanitize the entire chiller so you don't have to worry about gunkies/baddies getting into your cooled wort.