I'm thinking of getting a BitFenix Prodigy, but I'd like to put a fair number of hard drives in the case. Unfortunately I also want a decent gfx card. Now I believe mITX only allows one PCIe slot so I need to somehow increase the number of sata ports. If I use a Z77 motherboard would I be able to use a sata port multiplier?
Some m-ITX boards have a x4 lane besides the x16 lane AFAIK. You could put a SATA expander card in that. Though that would cost you the ability to have an aftermarket soundcard - unless you went with a USB one. Edit: I'm talking out of my butt here. No M-ITX has more than one PCI-e slot. How many harddrives do you need to have in that machine? Some M-ITX boards come with 6 SATA ports, and if you can get by with a USB DVD drive you can have a boot drive + 5 HDD's.
Also, how are you going to power a port multiplier with no spare pcie slots? Otherwise, i guess you 'could' look at running 2x esata-to-sata cables from through the back of the case to add an extra 2 drives... Though it wouldn't be my first choice... Or look for a cheap external USB3 enclosure - the cheap esata ones can be rather pernickity unless you use their Sil pcie card (see Anand's write up of the Mediasonic thing here) where they found issues using their onboard intel esata thing... ...&, again, you don't have a spare pcie slot of course.
Yeah as PocketDemon states I would look at some USB3 enclosures. You might be able to get them small enough for you to store the disks on the inside of the Prodigy.
PocketDemon: There are internal sata port multipliers that use a floppy power lead. The i/p is a normal sata connection not esata as well.
Oh - as the OP was talking about "a fair number of hard drives"... ...i was thinking more along the lines of something like this to add an extra 4 drives... ...well, not necessarily that one in particular, but you can find alternatives that are much the same price. They also (fairly recently) stocked an 8 bay USB3 version of this for much the same price so it may be worth asking... Okay, i know first hand that the build quality of the 8 bay one is a little shonky, but they're a comparatively (very) cheap way to add 8 more drives &, touch wood, are very reliable - though i've only used mine for single drives or R1 with the card they come with - my oldest one is over 2 years old now... Just to clarify, if you were only looking at a single drive per esata port, there's no issue with using the onboard ones... ...& you can get an esata-to-sata cable fairly cheaply. ...& Picarro's correct that you could combine/replace that with usb3 enclosures... ...or maybe something like this? (i've not price compared at all on the Maplin link - it was just checking that something like it existed)
Are there??? i've never heard of them, but i stand corrected. [Edit] Doing a quick google search for - port multiplier floppy - & they do exist. Apologies for any confusion... ...& then there's no reason at all why they wouldn't work. [Edit 2] i've just realised something - the cards that appeared from a quick google search are designed to sit over a pci/pcie/etc slot... ...with a mitx case (so no mounts below the board), are you going to have sufficient clearance above the board to mount the thing???
Port multiplier + Intel SATA controller = failure. It won't work. You will see only one of your hard drives connected to it. Trust me, i tested it. You need Marvell or Silicon Chips controller for port multipliers to work, period.
Technical explanation: Intel didn't implement that feature. http://communities.intel.com/thread/19687 http://communities.intel.com/thread/20954 In short - hardware side is probably done, but there is no support on software side at all (by software support they mean BIOS/UEFI/OS drivers).
Ummmm... As a further limitation to that, Anand's testing showed that, whilst it detected the drives with a Marvell controller, it bsod'd repeatedly. So that leaves just Sil i guess...(?)
I personally had no issues with Marvell on P8Z68-V PRO, but i was using Linux at the time . Anyway, considering all SATA ports on all Intel ITX boards are handled by Intel controller, and most times even the eSATA ports if they have any, the result is simple - port multiplers are a no-go. Get some external USB3 hard drive RAID system or just make yourself a NAS system and put it somewhere. I have just one SSD in my ITX system(s), everything else is comes from centralized NAS.
How much disk space do you need? Considering most mitx case and motherboard support at least 4 HDD, and if you had 4 x 3TB drives that is a pretty good amount of storage. I would say replace your smaller disks instead of trying to achieve some convoluted set up.
Well I was originally thinking of moving my current setup (6) to a new box, but it does look like I'm going to have to rationalise. Better to find out now. Thanks for the feedback. Incidentally I did find this Linux related page: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SATA_hardware_features So it does seem that Intel's support for PMP has been patchy. I'm not sure if the latest chipset is mentioned on that page.
