cheapest NAS setup?

farzher · January 14, 2023

i just want to buy a harddrive that my family can use to backup/share files on.

is there like a harddrive enclosure that can just plug into my router via ethernet? i'm not too concerned about having multiple drives for redundancy.

i'd be surprised if that doesn't exist... but if it doesn't, is the solution just to use an old laptop as my NAS? can i do this just using windows to share a drive on the network? i don't need a fancy linux server

OhioYJ · January 14, 2023

32 minutes ago, farzher said:

is there like a harddrive enclosure that can just plug into my router via ethernet?

A lot of routers allow you to do this via USB. It's a built in feature for many.

wseaton · January 14, 2023

Depends on the router. If they have a USB plug then you can typically just buy a powered USB drive and share it like you said. Basically the router has a NAS feature built in.

There's always One Drive or Google Drive.