# Barebones PC Kit as NAS?



## durl (Mar 27, 2003)

I was curious if anyone has bought a barebones PC kit to use as a NAS.

I've got an old PC that I considered converting but it can only handle 2 HDDs and I'd like to have 4. Since the old PC would require some work, I wondered if picking up a barebones kit with enough bays built-in would be a better choice.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

durl said:


> I was curious if anyone has bought a barebones PC kit to use as a NAS.


Due to power and flexibility considerations, I've found that a dedicated NAS is often cheaper, easier and sometimes faster than building one out of a beater computer.

My personal experiment with this idea ended when I looked into a suitable operating system to use with modern versions of Windows and discovered that Samba didn't work as well as I had hoped and a version of Windows would double the cost of the system.


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

Agreed, find a Linkyss, buffalo, d-link dedicated NAS for less than $100 (less drives).


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Most barebones are limited on the number of drive slots is the only issue.

Depending on your inventory, a beater computer is a good solution. But if you dont have a good set of parts, then it may be cheaper to do something different. It is pretty bad to say that it is not good to use a beater computer though, considering many run much faster than the consumer NAS solutions out there and just require some new drives and a free distro like FreeNAS.


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## durl (Mar 27, 2003)

dennisj00 said:


> Agreed, find a Linkyss, buffalo, d-link dedicated NAS for less than $100 (less drives).


I'm having trouble finding a 4-bay NAS (sans drives) for under $100...


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

Probably not going to find a 4 drive solution for under 100. . . I've got 2 2TB in a linksys. . .get two of them and you're still cheaper than the beater PC (and less wattage).


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## mrjussellr (Jul 3, 2010)

I use free nas and it works great, i just haven't figured out how to make trans-coding work with my hddvrs

If i cant get it to work, Ill just another service/devices to do it like a wii.

I use a usb drive to boot the os , this leaves 4 ports free I the computer for drives.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I'm closing this one as it is fairly old. If there is more to say on this subject, I encourage you to open a new thread. Thanks.


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