this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025

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522

Don't throw away your old PC—it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy (www.howtogeek.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by excel24@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] MudMan@fedia.io 4 points 3 weeks ago

I mean... my old PC burns through 50-100W, even at idle and even without a bunch of spinning hard drives. My actual NAS barely breaks that under load with all bays full.

I could scrounge up enough SATA inputs on it to make for a decent NAS if I didn't care about that, and I could still run a few other services with the spare cycles, but... maybe not the best use of power.

I am genuinely considering turning it into a backup box I turn on under automation to run a backup and then turn off after completion. That's feasible and would do quite well, as opposed to paying for a dedicated backup unit.

[–] spongebue@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

How about a Raspberry Pi? I've got one (Raspberry Pi 400) running my Home Automation setup with a couple USB 3.0 ports. Was thinking there's gotta be some add-ons for Home Assistant to put some external storage to good use.

Don't need anything too fancy. Just looking for some on-site backup and maybe some media storage

[–] Damage@feddit.it 2 points 3 weeks ago

I think you can install OpenMediaVault on that, at least I used to run it on a Pi 3 and an USB drive. Then just run whatever docker container you wish to.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

For backups it will be fine. Same for media storage. But if you want media streaming from the device (like plex) then you'll want something better.

[–] spongebue@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, I guess I should have been clear that's part of what I was thinking (although to be honest I'm mostly a schmuck who pays for a few streaming services and uses that)

What exactly would be the main choking point? Horsepower of the Pi to take that stored file and stream it to the client?

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago

So I believe the Pi 4 was the 1st to have an actual ethernet controller and not just having essentially a built in USB to ethernet adapter so bandwidth to your HDDs/ethernet shouldn't be a problem.

Streaming directly off of the pi should be tolerable. A bit slower than a full fat computer with tons of ram for caching and CPU power to buffer things. But fine. There's some quirks with usb connected HDDs that makes them a bit slower than they should (still in 2025 UASP isn't a given somehow) But streaming ultimately doesn't need that much bandwidth.

What's going to be unbearable is transcoding. If you're connecting some shitty ass smart TV that only understands like H264 and your videos are 265 then that has to get converted, and that SUCKS. Plex by default also likes to play videos at a lower bitrate sometimes, which means transcoding.

There's also other weird quirks to look out for. Like someone else was (I think) doing exactly what you wanted to do, but no matter what the experience was unbearable. Apparently LVM was somehow too much compute for the pi to handle, and as soon as they switched to raw EXT4 they could stream perfectly fine. I don't remember why this was a problem, but it's just kind of a reminder of how weak these devices actually are compared to "full" computers.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

IIRC raspberry pis aren’t great as big storage NAS due to limited io but like for a small amount of home storage more than adequate.

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[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

My old PC and laptop are too loud to use for anything really. It‘s unfortunate but the noise is too much.

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[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Why would I throw it away, when I can give it to someone who needs it more, or sell it? Using it as a NAS will use up more power than just buying a mini PC and using that. I calculated the costs and the energy savings would pay for one in two years. My NUC uses 6-7W idle.
I'd use an old PC as a NAS but turned it on only on demand, when it was needed. Which does hurt its convenience factor a little.
Note: talking about desktops.

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[–] Quazatron@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

I see what you mean, and I have that (old PC with a bunch of 2.5" HDDs formatted as ZFS).

For me power consumption is more important than performance, so I'm looking for a lower power solution for photo sharing, music collection and backups.

[–] BigTurkeyLove@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't know why yall are being so NASty.... seriously what's a NAS?

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[–] regeya@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

I've got a Lenovo sitting by the TV, quietly running Jellyfin along with ESde. Might not run Win11 but it works fine for what I use it for.

[–] blinfabian@feddit.nl 2 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

nah i tried to use my old pc for a nas, but it has almost no SATA ports. (it was a prebuilt)

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[–] SystemL@literature.cafe 2 points 3 weeks ago

I love my trueNAS!

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