A NAS is basically a box full of hard drives, and there are a lot of ways to set one up without paying $1,000 for a big-name 8-bay box. You probably have parts lying around the house that can be used in the setup, including the one thing those shiny boxes almost never give you: real PCIe slots. Whether you're picking up a used PC for NAS duty or rescuing your own, these are the five cards I'd actually spend money on to close the gap with a premium NAS, and then blow right past it.
