this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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If you want a NAS on the cheap my preference is just get any cheap "normal" PC, a case with a good amount of HDD bays. Move the drives into the PC, and you have all the expand ability you could dream of. You can find plenty of DDR4 machines for cheap now. Then as ram prices come down you can go up to 128gb of ram as long as your board has 4 slots.
Anything on craigslist/FB marketplace will work.
This is the ticket. I got an enormous case in trade with a hoarder buddy, used mobo/cpu on ebay, new cheapo PSU, etc
Still just have 3 drives in but space for like 10 of them once I install the 2x cd bay hdd holder that fits a few more drives.