NAS = Network Attached Storage.

NAS devices help to overcome storage problems and gives your data a centralized place. A place from where people can access and share the data 24×7 through the network.

There are lots of companies those offers Software + Hardware NAS boxes which are basically an out-of-box NAS solution, for example, Qnap and Synology are two veteran NAS vendors.

The cost of NAS boxes depends on the features such as the amount of storage, RAM, CPU etc. But if you want to convert your old system into a NAS box without spending Thousands of Pounds then here is the solution.

FreeNAS

FreeNAS is a free and open-source network-attached storage software based on FreeBSD and the OpenZFS file system. It is licensed under the terms of the BSD License and runs on commodity x86-64 hardware

NOTE: FreeNAS needs a good amount of RAM to work, especially when you planning to install ZFS file system.

NAS4Free

NAS4Free is a network-attached storage server software with a dedicated management web interface. It is free software under the terms of the Simplified BSD license.

NOTE: The web interface is not much user-friendly and one may find some difficulty while navigating and extending its functionality through plugins.

OpenMediaVault (OMV)

OpenMediaVault is very solid network attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux. It can be your choice if you do not want ZFS. The services it provides are SSH, (S)FTP, SMB/CIFS, Rsync, BitTorrent client, DAAP media server, and much more.

Rockstor

Rocktsor is based on Centos Linux and BTRFS to provide NAS and cloud storage. It supports BTRFS which is a filesystem like ZFS to provide high data integrity and security. It can use as personal cloud server and SMB Cloud Server with clean and simple web GUI.