ITX and at least 4 SATA ports?

IAmATeaf

IAmATeaf

IAmATeaf

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Was thinking of replacing my NAS with a Synology but getting an ITX based system seems to make more sense. Looking at some of the boards they only have 2 or 3 SATA ports which for what I want to do isn't enough. So are there any board out there with 4 or more SATA ports and what sort of case would people recommend to house say 4 3.5" SATA drives.

For the case I want it to be as small as possible and I'll using the ITX system to stream to the PS3 and for backup purposes.
 
I thought that zotac had two sata ports, though it says four in the spec I can't see them on the board. The expensive socket 775 zotac has three internal and one esata, so could use these four. There's an atom based one with four internal ports made by point of view, but I don't know much about them as a brand.

There's an amazing case for an nas, but it's expensive, around £180. Chenbro ES34069. All links seem to be competitors, it has four hot swap drive bays which is very good. Comes with a 120W psu which I know nothing about.

I want to build a nas/fileserver/router box based around mini-itx, but can't seem to find the right mix of hardware for it.
 
motherboard - point of view atom 330, 4 sata, nvidia ion and pcie slot for raid expansion if you wanted. Link to review but can be had for about 110 quid if you shop around using google shopping (1st link uk).

case - easy one really - bluejour mini-itx case AS (blue is only colour but paint is cheap), comes with 4 internal 3.5 drive bays, 120w psu dc to dc board (may need an external brick) and costs under £70 (only one uk retailer on google). Get an external optical if needed

Theres a chieftec alternative at £200 but thats too much for what it is.
 
Found a new one http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/01/08/zotac-launches-h55-mini-itx-board/

h55 based mini-itx board with six sata ports
2m5xrih.jpg


The blue case is very interesting, hadn't heard of it before. Can't find a review, do you happen to have a link to one (in English)?
 
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Thanks for the info guys, I never realised Zotac produced so many ITX mobos, they also have a G43 based mobo, similar to the above with 6 SATA ports, PCI-E port and LGA775 CPU support, think that is what I may be after? Now I just have to price it all up :)
 
I've been looking to do just this myself, make a home server around a mini-itx machine. I was looking at the H55-itx, but the G43 should do the work just as well and be cheaper (and have cheaper processors).

For a case I wasn't willing to pay for the chenbro NAS case, as ideal as it would be, so I was actually thinking of buying the Lian Li q07, using a picopsu or similar, and using the rest of the space where the normal PSU would have been, to fit in extra drives.

I don't know the actual space limits inside but one thought was to cut out the bottom of the optical drive bay, and add either a 3 x 3.5" HD in 2 x 5.25" expander, or if there is space without interfering with the MB, a 5 x 3.5" in 3 x 5.25". Of course these expanders aren't too cheap themselves. And having looked at the space on pictures, its probably either not possible or would take a lot of work.

The other way would be to just fasion something out of sheet aluminium that would hold a few drives unders the optical bay.

My main worry was with the power supply. Would a 150W picoPSU or the included DC-DC adapters you get with many mini-itx cases cope with four 3.5" drives and a socket motherboard? Given that even the green drives are rated to pull 2A on spinup on the 12V rail (24W), times four and I can see the 12V rail being overloaded. Maybe staggered spinup and such technologies may help this. If anyone has any first hand advice on this it would be very useful to me.
 
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Saundie said:
I ended up going for a D945GCLF2 and adding a PCI SATA card in order to get enough ports.
Click to expand...

I have that board and I was thinking about adding a SATA card so I can make a server. What SATA card and case do you use? I'm looking for a case that's big enough to take 4 HDDs but without being too big.
 
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zom247 said:
I have that board and I was thinking about adding a SATA card so I can make a server. What SATA card and case do you use? I'm looking for a case that's big enough to take 4 HDDs but without being too big.
Click to expand...
The SATA card is a cheap, generic VIA VT6421 based model, it was about £10 off of a well known auction site. The case is a Morex Venus 669, which appears to be no longer available. At the moment I have only three hard drives in it, as I've not yet been able to aquire a 3-in-2 hotswap bay. With the 3-in-2 bay, it would be possible to fit 5 hard drives; 3 in the bay and 2 in the 3.5" slots in the case itself.

That X-Case Atomic ITX linked by Hairy looks like a better bet, though! It's a shame it wasn't available when I put together my server.
 
I'm going to get the x-case atomic. I only need 3 hdds at the moment so I'll put 2 in the bays and add a hotswap bay to the 5.25 bay as I don't need a dvd. I can always add a 4th hdd to the bay inside the case if I need to. Will also buy a sata card as well.
 
zom247 said:
That's the sort of case I'm after. Thanks for the reply.

Out of interest, did you mod it to fit another 2 drives in and if so, how?
Click to expand...

Just have one in the tray and one sitting on the base of the case atm. Haven't looked at other solutions just yet, I wonder if you can get a replacement slide in double tray?
 
Saundie said:
The SATA card is a cheap, generic VIA VT6421 based model, it was about £10 off of a well known auction site. The case is a Morex Venus 669, which appears to be no longer available. At the moment I have only three hard drives in it, as I've not yet been able to aquire a 3-in-2 hotswap bay. With the 3-in-2 bay, it would be possible to fit 5 hard drives; 3 in the bay and 2 in the 3.5" slots in the case itself.

That X-Case Atomic ITX linked by Hairy looks like a better bet, though! It's a shame it wasn't available when I put together my server.
Click to expand...

Is the SATA card you have SATA I or SATA II? Been looking and can't seem to find any SATA II PCI cards out there. Indeed, is there any point of a SATA II card in my server?
 
zom247 said:
I'm going to get the x-case atomic. I only need 3 hdds at the moment so I'll put 2 in the bays and add a hotswap bay to the 5.25 bay as I don't need a dvd. I can always add a 4th hdd to the bay inside the case if I need to. Will also buy a sata card as well.
Click to expand...

Did you buy that case (I'd remove references to the competitor... !!) its got other names BTW?

I'd be interested to know how you got on with all those HDDs inside? Any pics? How were drive temps with only one 80mm exhaust fan doing whole case??
 
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