this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025
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Don't throw away your old PC–it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy (www.howtogeek.com)
submitted 3 days ago by rssbot@lemmy.bestiver.se to c/hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
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[–] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 33 points 3 days ago (5 children)

...until you look at the power consumption.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Power prices are also up a ton. It’s like up over 20% year over year in my area to help subsidize all the new AI data centers.

[–] piccolo@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago

I compensate the power usage by using my nas to also run all kinds of services.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Depends on how old.

By the late 20-teens, stuff got a lot more power friendly. I have a 2017 Dell desktop that idles at 18w with an 8TB drive inside. Marginally more than my NAS.

Though I'm not disagreeing, you definitely need to check that first. It's why I retired my really old desktop that was my prior server - it idled at 100w+. Ouch.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

This is a good point.

[–] Tim_Bisley@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago

I'm idling at around 30w with my old system. Old xeon CPU, rtx 2060, 17tb.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

I've done this for years, my old PC becomes my media server.

(Oops, replied to my own comment.)

[–] null@piefed.nullspace.lol 1 points 3 days ago

This is a good point.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Why not just use your current PC as a nas

[–] morto@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

As a tip for the selfhosters who like to reuse older hardware, look for pcs with cpus made by via. The late models had a very low power consumption for the time and were already x86_64. You can do some nice stuff with them.