Local NAS 💽

Do you have some old laptop lying around? Make it a local NAS! (Note this laptop may still be used for other stuff, e.g a media center). The starting procedure is fairly simple but may get more involved the more functionalities you add. This tutorial is specifically for linux, first off you need 2 programs:

samba
avahi

Samba will make it possible to share a folder on the network, avahi will make the folder/laptop discoverable. The arch wiki has a thorough documentation on how to set up samba, but the easiest would be to create a new user called "NAS", deleting the pre-created folders in his home folder. This folder will be the one other computers on the network (or outside if you set up a vpn) will have access to. Next, create the file /etc/samba/smb.conf like the following:

smb.conf
[global] map to guest = bad user create mask = 0664 directory mask = 0775 server role = standalone server [NAS] path=/home/nas read only = no guest ok = yes guest only = yes

You may now start and enable samba+avahi:

shell
systemctl start smb && systemctl enable smb
systemctl start avahi && systemctl enable avahi-daemon

If you have a general file viewer installed like dolphin, on another computer the nas should show up under network>smb. The next step is upgrading the storage space, for this I recommend using old HDD/SSD's that you have lying around and buying usb->sata cables, if you have many get a usb splitter. If you want you can also (as I did) create a 3D printed housing for the hdd drives and splitter. Having these HDD/SDD's wired, you may mount them to files in the home folder, e.g say you have two disks A and B you may create folders /home/nas/A and /home/nas/B to which these drives are mounted and thus show up. You might also be able to create some sort of RAID system if you feel the need.

Finally note that if you have trouble connecting to the NAS, even though it shows up, it might be needed to add the hostname<->ip in /etc/host.