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Buy 3x 16 or 18 TB external harddrives on black Friday and shuck them. It is still going to run you $400-$500. Can't do it cheaper as far as I know.

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Yep I have done that before to make a 6 bay NAS. Gotta tape over a couple connectors on the sata connector but works great. Datahorders on reddit is a great sub for that sort of stuff. Guides as well as people posting when the deals happen for WD elements (external hdds)

not an argument but just an FYI for people reading about that idea for the first time: some NAS enclosures (QNAP, Synology?) and some power supplies can use the drives directly without disabling that 3.3V pin.

Most enterprise level stuff can (ie, anything that'll go into a rack, the expensive QNAPs/Synos, any supermicro I've encountered, etc.) handle the 3V3 pin issue just fine, in my experience.

Black Friday isn't always the best time: https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B08KTRBHP1

But great advice and the route I've personally taken :)

Yep, just predictably has some deals. eBay can be a reasonable option too.

Best source I've found is BestBuy with Easystore drives.

In fact they have 14TBs for $199.99 right now ($14.28/TB)

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-14tb-external-usb-...

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