5 cheap PCIe cards that turn any old PC into a premium NAS

Published Nov 14, 2026, 5:30 PM EST Monica J. White is a journalist with over a decade of experience in covering technology. She built her first PC nearly 20 years ago, and she has since built and tested dozens of PCs. PC hardware is her main beat, and graphics cards and the GPU market at large are her main area of interest, but she has written thousands of articles covering everything related to PCs, laptops, handhelds, and peripherals. From GPUs and CPUs to headsets and software, Monica's always willing to geek out over all things related to computing. Outside of her work with How-To Geek, Monica contributes to TechRadar, PC Gamer, Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, SlashGear, Whop, and Digital Trends, among others. Her ultimate goal is to make PC gaming and computing approachable and fun to any audience. Monica spends a lot of time elbow-deep in her PC case, as she's always making upgrades, testing something, or plotting out her next build. She's the go-to tech support person in her immediate circle, so she's never out of things to do. Whenever she has spare time, you'll find her gaming until the early hours and hanging out with her dog. A NAS is basically a box full of hard drives, and there are a lot of ways to set one up without paying $1,000 for a big-name 8-bay box. You probably have parts lying around the house that can be used in the setup, including the one thing those shiny boxes almost never give you: real PCIe slots. Whether you're picking up a used PC for NAS duty or rescuing your own, these are the five cards I'd actually spend money on to close the gap with a premium NAS, and then blow right past it. A 6-port ASM1166 SATA card The quickest fix to add a few more drives Credit: Andrew Heinzman/How-To GeekCredit: Ismar Hrnjicevic / How-To Geek If you've got an old desktop sitting in a cupboard somewhere, it probably only has between four and six SATA ports, with a couple already in use. The quick fix to expand your capacity is to grab a six-port card built on ASMedia's ASM1166 chip, like the 10Gtek 6-Port SATA 3.0 PCIe Expansion Card. Your computer will treat the drives exactly like onboard SATA, without any setup fuss. To get it right, you just need to keep two things in mind. Firstly, make sure to buy a version with an x4 edge connector and put it in a slot that’s wired for at least x2. The ASM1166 only uses two PCIe 3.0 lanes, which is enough for six hard drives at full speed, but the x1 versions of these cards cut that bandwidth in half. Secondly, avoid the 10- and 20-port cards, because they're just using port multipliers and that won't do the job. An LSI 9300-8i HBA in IT mode When you want more than just 'a few more drives' If you want more than around six extra drives, or your case has a SAS backplane, you might benefit from a HBA. The SAS3008-based 9300-8i cards (like this one that ships with SATA breakout cables) are great for this. An older 9211-8i can work too, as long as you're using normal hard drives. For NAS purposes, you need to run the cards in IT mode, so your computer can see each individual drive. This is server-grade tech, however—and it can get pretty hot. Most people strap a small fan to the heatsink and that does the job just fine. The one real problem is that the market includes a lot of fakes, so you should really check that you've been given the right thing as soon as you receive it. An Intel I226-V 2.5GbE card The ultimate cheap speed boost To get your NAS up to speed, you may need to give it an Ethernet upgrade. Your drives can likely reach about 250MB/s, but there's a good chance that your old PC only has gigabit Ethernet (around 110MB/s). The fix is a 2.5GbE card like this Intel I226-V-based PCIe x1 card, which fits in the tiny and probably unused PCIe x1 slot on your motherboard. Once plugged in, you'll have a new Ethernet port capable of roughly 280MB/s, which is more than fast enough to keep up with your hard drives. To get the benefit, though, you've got to make sure the rest of your network can match the speed. That means you need a router and cables need to be able to manage the 250-280MB/s speeds. Tell XDB what you want the PC to do and how much you want to spend. We'll find parts that fit, with current prices. What will you use it for? Pick any Games or apps Optional Budget Plan my build Opens XDB, XDA's free PC builder, in a new tab. An Intel X520 10GbE card The thing to do if you want premium NAS speed If you want to go even faster, forget the 2.5GbE card and go 10GbE. While it would be pointless for a single card, your collection of drives working together can make use of those 1,100MB/s. You'll be able to copy big files quickly, edit videos straight off the NAS, or handle several users at once. My pick would be an Intel X520-DA2-style card like the 10Gtek dual SFP+ NIC. There are tonnes on the market for good prices, and they're very well supported. It wants an x8 slot, which makes it perfect for the empty x16 slot where an old GPU used to live. Then all you need is a cheap DAC cable to deal with the SFP+ ports. If you'd prefer regular RJ45 Ethernet, a newer Realtek RTL8127 card like this NICGIGA one can work pretty well. Either way, double-check which router port your NAS is actually plugged into before you blame the card. A dual NVMe adapter with a built-in switch Because hard drives suck at busywork Your hard drives will do a stellar job at storing big bulky files, but if you want your NAS to feel snappy, you should run its OS and various apps on an NVMe instead. They're way better at handling the busy little tasks at decent speeds. However, if you're reusing an older motherboard, there's always the chance that it won't have an M.2 slot. If that's the case, what you need is a dual NVMe adapter, which is a card that plugs into a regular PCIe slot and takes two NVMe drives. The GLOTRENDS PA20, for example, puts two NVMe drives on a single x4 slot. It's not the cheapest option, but that's because it has a clear advantage: its own switch chip. This allows it to work out of the box, even if your old consumer board doesn't support PCIe bifurcation. Both drives share the x4 link, but for a mirrored apps pool, you'll never notice. Start with storage and work your way up You definitely don't need all five cards on this list to put your NAS together. A lot of it depends on the motherboard you use and what it can support. To start with, grab the SATA card (or the HBA if you're going big) and the 2.5GbE card for a minimal setup. Build it, test it out, and if you need more, start adding the rest. If you're hunting for the right box to put them in, the post-Windows 10 used PC market is a goldmine for NAS builds right now.