So I got a cheap 4tb HGST Deskstar NAS hard drive off of craigslist... How would I go about using it?
According to Backblaze, the 4TB NAS HGST drives are currently the best. Get a mini ITX computer and make it into a server. FreeNAS is a great file server system. ZFS won't be of much use since there is only one drive, but it will still get a lot of use that way.
There's no problem with putting it in a normal PC; it will simply be faster and more reliable.
Oh, and so idiot was really selling this very valuable drive in perfect condition for cheap? I'm truly amazed.
40 off of new price... not too cheap... but you're saying for all intents n purposes it's just a much more sturdy hd that will last longer?
Yup. NAS drives are simply higher quality. They are designed to be on and handle loads 24/7.
yep you can just use is as a regular drive, or get some hardware together and make a server/nas.
Just use it normally, NAS hard drives are better built than consumer ones. I also use a RE4 which is an enterprise drive as a normal drive too.
All SATA drives will work fine on a regular desktop, it's only SAS drives that won't work unless you have a SAS card.