[SOLVED] Budget NAS (Under $100)

plo346

Commendable
Sep 16, 2016
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1,530
What is a good way to build or buy a NAS for under $100 I was thinking maybe buy a used pc then put more drives in but I'm not sure how well it will work
 
Solution
Cheapest way, plug an external hard drive into your router and share it. A lot of all in one type routers have this option. It's a bit slow but it works.
Next cheapest, use an old PC like you suggest. How well it works depends on the hardware and how much effort you put into setting it up.

It could be as simple as using windows file sharing and sharing a folder with the workgroup (not always actually that easy)
Or using a dedicated NAS OS like freeNAS (but it has fairly high RAM requirements) or Open-e DSS (a biit tricker to set up and has limitations on the free version). Or you could step it up a bit an learn how to configure a server version of Linux, Ubuntu server or FreeBSD for example.

And the easiest and most expensive - buy a NAS

Dugimodo

Distinguished
Cheapest way, plug an external hard drive into your router and share it. A lot of all in one type routers have this option. It's a bit slow but it works.
Next cheapest, use an old PC like you suggest. How well it works depends on the hardware and how much effort you put into setting it up.

It could be as simple as using windows file sharing and sharing a folder with the workgroup (not always actually that easy)
Or using a dedicated NAS OS like freeNAS (but it has fairly high RAM requirements) or Open-e DSS (a biit tricker to set up and has limitations on the free version). Or you could step it up a bit an learn how to configure a server version of Linux, Ubuntu server or FreeBSD for example.

And the easiest and most expensive - buy a NAS
 
Solution

plo346

Commendable
Sep 16, 2016
32
0
1,530


would 16gb be good for freeNAS? our router doesn't support sharing
 
well unless you have all the parts already for a computer to become a nas server you may consider for 140$ a 1TB nas drive that plugs directly into your network I use 3 of this type (2x2tb and 16TB) for years now without any issues streaming movies, music, video photos daily.

WD My Cloud Home 2TB Single Drive Personal Cloud Storage https://www.frys.com/product/9422181?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
 

plo346

Commendable
Sep 16, 2016
32
0
1,530


I'm looking for something that I can expand later and have more redundancy via RAID
 

plo346

Commendable
Sep 16, 2016
32
0
1,530


my plan at this point is to have the system without drives for under $100 then spend $150 or so on 2 4tb drives for raid
 

Dugimodo

Distinguished


Yeah, they recommend 1GB of RAM per TB of storage, but with a minimum of 8GB.
Something to do with how ZFS works makes it need a lot of RAM. They also recommend ECC RAM but plenty of people seem to get away without it.

I never actually got around to trying FreeNAS myself. Set up Open-e DSS for a bit, then bought a QNAP 2 bay NAS and used that instead. Might go back to the freeNAS Idea next year myself.