Rolling your own NAS, 2021 edition

Although their appeal has been somewhat diminished by the wide availability of streaming services, a network attached storage device is still a great addition to any home. It can keep your data, media and documents stored in a central location that is secure, private and accessible to every device on your network.

But while commercial NAS devices are cool, they’re also expensive. And that’s before you include the actual hard disks for storage, for which the sky is the limit on cost.

But you can also roll your own NAS using free software and an older PC that you might have lying around. A five or even ten year old PC is likely to have