Cheap NAS

[Hendricks3]

I am trying and wanting to be a NAS on the cheap whether it be through an office prebuilt or some old cheap hw. What would be some of you guys’ recommendations? It’ll be a host for a plex server as an editing nas from my pc. Thoughts?

[DrMacintosh]

If that's the case all you really need is a couple of HDDs, an ethernet port, and any old computer. Just install Plex and configure an SMB file share. You could technically do this on a Raspberry Pi, not that it would be very good, but you could do it. 

[Aleph256]

1 hour ago, Hendricks3 said:

I am trying and wanting to be a NAS on the cheap whether it be through an office prebuilt or some old cheap hw. What would be some of you guys’ recommendations? It’ll be a host for a plex server as an editing nas from my pc. Thoughts?

From personal experience, cheaping out on the hardware might bite you in the ass later.

Don't go for anything with less than 4GB of RAM, preferably upgradeable.

[zsnider]

1 hour ago, Aleph256 said:

cheaping out on the hardware might bite you in the ass later

I used to use a really old HP with Plex on it and it would start to chug and buffer whenever it was doing any transcoding. If you're going to go with cheap stuff now definitely make sure you're able to upgrade it in the future.

[Hendricks3]

What would be a good starting point for plex im not too worry as i always switch my movies to mp4 right after ripping them

[Aleph256]

I just died a bit inside.

Why would anyone forego the benefits of a MKV container for burned-in single-track MP4 garbage?

[Hendricks3]

5 hours ago, Aleph256 said:

I just died a bit inside.

Why would anyone forego the benefits of a MKV container for burned-in single-track MP4 garbage?

Space saving since i only have a single bay portable usb drive for now