Small Form Factor Thin ITX or NUC m/b with port multiplier?

I am investigating a project where I will need to install a small m/b into a "non-standard" enclosure and I will need 5 SATA ports (or 4 SATA and 1 M.2).

Doing my homework around various choices of boards, looking at the space available I will either need a thin ITX m/b or potentially I can use something like an Intel NUC m/b if I can get 4 SATA ports working with it.

In loads of searching I have not come across anyone who has successfully got a port multiplier working with either an NUC or a consumer thin ITX m/b.

Has anyone here ever tried this with an NUC or thin ITX m/b with any success?

My preference for this project would be an NUC m/b with a port multipler (like this?) which would make the project much simpler in terms of installation.

Any thoughts?

 

Are you after 4 ports total on the board or are you trying to achieve 20 ports?

 

You might not get it from an NUC but some the asrock/supermicro itx boards have >=4 sata ports on them, they tend to be the ones with soldered on cpus though so a lot dpends on what the whole shebang is for...

EDIT:

If speed isn't important, could you not jury rig something up involving USB->SATA adaptors and the on-board USB headers?

 

Intel SATA controllers do not support port multipliers. Also NUC has 1 SATA port at best. With NUC your best bet would be sacrificing the M.2 slot and using something like https://www.reichelt.com/ws/en/m-2-ngff-4x-sata-6-gb-s-delock-54668-p162498.html or https://en.intos.de/product-overvie...-2.0-sata-card-4x-sata-6gb/s-raid-0-1-10-jbod .

 

Thanks for the responses.

To clarify, I want to build a NAS in a non-standard enclosure and am limited for space, even a thin ITX m/b is going to be tight height-wise. I don't need too much grunt, a Celeron or Pentium is more than enough - it will need to run Plex though.

I need 4 SATA ports (for the NAS HDD's) and a boot drive, either M.2 or I could get away with USB. I don't need RAID on the SATA controller, all that will be software controlled.

I'll have a look at the Asrock and Supermicro boards now.

 

Agreed look at asrock/supermicro itx boards. I have a ASRock C2550D4I with 8 SATA ports, and love it and would recommend it except that it is aging and more importantly, the processor is a ticking time bomb (due to Intel's Atom 2000 SoC flaw). Running FreeNAS and host's my PLEX server.

 

Just to give you an idea of the height restriction I am working with, if I mount a new m/b where the existing m/b is (more or less thin ITX size) I have roughly 28mm height clearance above the motherboard - that's the CPU h/s & cooler clearance.

If I use an NUC sized m/b, I have another location that allows around 55mm height clearance.

 

Do you need a lot of cpu horse power? And is thin itx a non negotiable?

If not I may have a and e350 itx board kicking around. Has 4 sata ports.

 

If it's enough to run OpenMediaVault and maybe the Plex addon, then thats enough. Whats the height of the e350 h/s & cooler?

 

Would this fit?

 

That integrated h/s looks higher than 28mm from the motherboard surface, hard to tell though in those pictures (or on Asrock's site).

 

id have to dig it out to double check. this is the link on the GB website: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-E350N-rev-10#ov

it will run OMV but i doubt its capable of running the plex addon.

just found this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100-Genu...981901?hash=item48c8e3414d:g:oRsAAOSwAtlcxb-3

Couple in a cheapish 1155 cpu and a 2xsata PCI-E silicon image based controller should get you up to 4 drives.

 

wait one more found, little bit more spendy though but you dont have to worry about faff around with adapters.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Giga...m=312608211947&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

 

Gigabyte have thin itx boards with 4 sata and m2.

I think you after a Q series.

Asus Q170T should do it.

 

i looks like the sink is taller than the rear i/o panel... but you're a resourceful gentleman, i'm sure you could shave it down if you had to

 

Cheers, if I want to use an ITX board, I am limited to 28mm of clearance above the m/b suface.

For that reason I also can't add a PCI-E SATa controller, its a non-standard enclosure (hint: its this thing I have had for 13 years).

 

That looks like a full size IO.

 

I need to sleep now but I'll get some internal photos done tomorrow showing the restriction.

 

The Jetway JNF9W-2930 has a pretty garbage CPU, but it is a thin-ITX board with 4 SATA ports. The Jetway JNF795T2-Q170 or ASRockRack MT-C224 might also work, but are socketed so would need you to supply your own think heatsink solution (with such a tiny Z-height available, that probably requires heatpipes to a heatsink elsewhere)

 

Funnily enough I thing the Jetway JNF9W-2930 may actually be the best bet. I was looking at this last night and found that I can get one for £60 new and boot from a USB header. Other options such as the other boards you mentioned are just stupid money. The Celeron N2930 should be more than enough for a NAS, it doesn't need to transcode.