If you want to get a NAS and aren't sure where to begin, you can buy an off-the-shelf all-in-one device that's simply just the NAS and all of the software that you need. However, if you want to build a NAS, then that's a different story, and you can build a very powerful NAS for less than $500. If you buy used parts, you can get it for even less.

You don't need a GPU, grab a cheap CPU and some RAM instead

Already eliminating most of the cost

If you're building a NAS and you want to do it cheaply, you don't need to get a GPU at all. In fact, any semi-modern CPU with an integrated GPU will be able to do any of the graphics required of a NAS. Not that you need anything particularly powerful for graphics, but the integrated graphics of a CPU will also be able to handle any video transcoding in Plex or Jellyfin. You should look up what codecs the CPU you're looking at will support, but most modern CPUs will be able to do practically everything.

For example, a Ryzen 5 4600G will handle H264, H265, and VP9 decoding. That's the vast majority of video file formats that you'll come across and will work just fine with a media streaming server. They're only $91 on Amazon right now. Any 'G' Ryzen will work, and so will any Intel chip that doesn't have an 'F'. There are plenty of other cheap options too, like a Celeron J4005 or a Ryzen 3200G. We're picking the 4600G just because it's a bit more powerful, but a basic NAS doesn't even need it.

Now you'll need some RAM, and we recommend picking up at least 16GB of RAM just for running your applications and services. Any basic DDR4 RAM will do, and if you're using an older CPU, chances are it won't even support DDR5 anyway. Just get something cheap to do the job, and you can find 16GB of DDR4 RAM for less than $50 at times.

Picking a motherboard, case, and power supply

You can cheap out here

Because there's no GPU and because you won't be doing anything too intensive, you don't need to invest a lot of money in a motherboard or a case. You just need the bare basics, and that includes the basics of a motherboard and the basics of cooling. We picked out a Lian Li LANCOOL case because it looks pretty, but you don't need anything as fancy.

Next up is the motherboard, and again, you can go really cheap. All you need to ensure is that you have SATA slots for your HDDs and that you have a spot for an M2 if you want to boot off of one, though not even that is necessary. Anything with those will do fine, and you can get something for less than $100 easily.

Finally, you'll need a power supply. Because a NAS isn't very power intensive, you can just pick up any lower-wattage PSU and it'll supply more than enough power to your NAS. You shouldn't really ever cheap out on a power supply, but you can go for a cheap but good power supply with low wattage to handle anything you'd put through a NAS. You can honestly probably even go as low as 400W, but you'll have a hard time finding something as low.

Now you just need some drives

These would usually never come with a NAS anyway

Without the drives, this build that we've walked you through will cost roughly $300, but you can save money by getting used parts, having a look around shopping holidays, or even pulling parts from an old machine. Now you'll just need some drives, and a NAS never usually comes with those anyway. We recommend picking up some of the best NAS hard drives for your new build.

Once you build your NAS, you'll need to install an operating system and I personally use TrueNAS on my machine. You can do research on what might suit you best. With used parts, old parts, and a bit of new, you can probably spend even less!