u/swooning_basil

I was hoping to set up some basic network storage to simplify moving files around the house (think putting movies and music on the media pc, moving STL files from my desktop to my 3d printing machine, etc) and it seems like even the cheapest single-drive NAS devices start at £150 - I don't understand what's in them that they cost so much?

I'd be more than happy to DIY something if they're just taking advantage of people who want an all-in-one solution, but I'm not entirely sure where to start with that.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what to look into? I was hoping to get something for more like £50 as I'm out of a job at the minute so can't really go overboard spending.

What I have:

• many hard drives
• many years of experience with linux, terminal use, and computer hardware
• a couple of random raspberry pis a
• router which might let me plug one (1) usb drive into it to add that to the network

What I don't have:

• Space or money to have another desktop pc running full-time
• experience with NAS software
• experience with nas hardware
• spare sata ports on my media pc

What I don't need:

• complicated software, random apps, or even a gui
• access to the storage from anything other than pcs and laptops within our wifi network
• super fast speeds
• anything running windows

What I might like:

• the ability to put my half a dozen random hard drives and ssds to good use
• RAID / redundancy (I think drives have to be the same size for RAID and mine are not)
• support for access from linux and macOS