Network Attached Storage (NAS) is a fantastic way to centralize your files and access them from any device on your network, but commercial units can be expensive. However, you can learn how to build your own NAS for under £35 using simple, accessible components. With just a spare SD card and a little bit of setup, you can create a personal cloud storage solution perfect for backups, file sharing, and media streaming.
Table of Contents
📦 What You’ll Need for Your Budget NAS
The heart of this budget-friendly NAS is a single-board computer, like a Raspberry Pi. These tiny computers are powerful enough to run NAS software but consume very little electricity. The main storage medium in this ultra-budget setup is a spare SD card. While you can attach external hard drives for more space, using just an SD card keeps the initial cost incredibly low, as suggested by the £33 price point mentioned in Computer Active. You will also need a power supply for the board and an ethernet cable to connect it to your router.
⚙️ A Step-by-Step Installation Guide
The first step is to install a dedicated NAS operating system onto your SD card. A popular and user-friendly choice for this is OpenMediaVault (OMV). You can download the OMV image for your specific single-board computer and use a tool like Raspberry Pi Imager or Balena Etcher to write it to your SD card. Once that’s done, insert the SD card into your device, connect it to your router via ethernet, and power it on.
🌐 How to Access and Use Your New Network Storage
After the initial boot-up, you can access your NAS’s web interface from another computer on the same network by typing its IP address into a browser. The web interface allows you to complete the setup, such as changing the default password, creating users, and configuring shared folders. You can set up services like SMB (Samba) for easy file access from Windows and macOS computers, or DLNA for streaming media to smart TVs and other devices. With that, your low-cost NAS is ready to serve files across your entire home network.
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“Build a NAS for Just £33.” Computer Active, no. 716, 13-26 Aug. 2025, p. 35.
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