{
  "id": 16184740,
  "title": "The best NAS I've owned is a 10-year-old office PC with four drives crammed inside",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/23/the-best-nas-ive-owned-is-a-10-year-old-office-pc-with-four-drives",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-23T12:00:20.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "XDA Developers",
    "slug": "xda-developers",
    "url": "https://www.xda-developers.com/old-office-pc-best-nas/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "When the reporter first dived into home storage, they believed a NAS would be necessary. While sleek towers from manufacturers like QNAP or Synology exist, any system can be transformed into a NAS, even one originally designed for a different purpose. In the reporter's case, a Dell OptiPlex PC that served as an office PC for a few years became their NAS. Four drives were installed inside, expanding its storage capabilities. To accommodate these drives, the optical drive was removed, and two 5.25-inch to 3.5-inch bay adapters were purchased to convert the remaining bays into slots for regular hard drives. The motherboard had four SATA ports, so no additional hardware was required. However, the power supply did not have enough connectors for the additional drives, so a SATA power splitter was used to resolve this issue. TrueNAS was installed from a flash drive, which was plugged into one of the motherboard's internal USB headers using another adapter. Despite the fact that dedicated NAS systems often come with energy-efficient CPUs and limited RAM, the transformed office PC offers more RAM for Docker containers and virtual machines, as well as the ability to handle demanding tasks such as Plex transcoding. Although NAS appliances may have a premium price for their design and convenience, the reporter found the DIY approach to be more cost-effective, especially since all the hardware, except for the hard drives and a few inexpensive adapters, were already owned. While NAS appliances are sleek and low-maintenance, the reporter recommends them primarily for home-lab and self-hosting enthusiasts who already have spare hardware lying around. Those who do not require the convenience a NAS appliance offers may find more options and upgradeability with a repurposed desktop tower.",
  "summary": "It's uglier, cheaper, and better than any NAS appliance I could've bought.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}