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Mini ITX NAS Build - Motherboard?

motonack
By motonack
in New Builds and Planning
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I've been in desperate need for more storage space lately and will be building a NAS within the next couple months.  I've got everything spec'd out except for a motherboard.  Nothing i've come across really seems optimal really.  The motherboard needs to be Mini ITX for the case I will be using, and must support either 8 sata ports with at least a single M2 slot for OS, or 9 sata ports for 8 storage drives + 1 for OS.

 

This is my current build, the motherboard listed is really the best thing out there, except the SAS chips arent supported by Freenas, or any other Linux based solutions, so its basically useless.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/motonack/saved/jpgQzy

 

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I've been in desperate need for more storage space lately and will be building a NAS within the next couple months.  I've got everything spec'd out except for a motherboard.  Nothing i've come across really seems optimal really.  The motherboard needs to be Mini ITX for the case I will be using, and must support either 8 sata ports with at least a single M2 slot for OS, or 9 sata ports for 8 storage drives + 1 for OS.

 

This is my current build, the motherboard listed is really the best thing out there, except the SAS chips arent supported by Freenas, or any other Linus based solutions, so its basically useless.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/motonack/saved/jpgQzy

 

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http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-z97iplus

Please follow your topics guys, it's very important! CoC F.A.Q  Please use the corresponding PC part picker link for your country USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, Italy, New Zealand and Germany

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The part list is private... we can't see it.

LTT's unofficial Windows activation expert.
 

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 Linus based solutions

Did you mean Linux? :D

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but thats only got 4. I dont think you can even fit that many sata ports on itx :S

ASUS pulled a really bizarre move with their Z97 mini itx motherboards.  Their older Z87 motherboards actually had 6 sata ports, and they removed two of them on the newer platform.  Anyways, 4 sata ports definitely wont work.  I'll be doing Raid 1, so i'll be only able to utilize half my drives for space.

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Sorry about that, didnt realize it was private, should work now.

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Check out this one: http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C2750D4I

It has enough SATA ports and is just an awesome board.

Projects | > Project DisplayGRID < | > Portable Virtualization Server < | > CORE GTX < | Projects

Community | > Schnitzel Teamspeak Server < | Community

Guides | > Getting started with a NAS < | > Setting up your Ubiquiti Access Points < | > pfSense Guide < | Guides

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Check out this one: http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C2750D4I

It has enough SATA ports and is just an awesome board.

I've been aware of this board since it launched, but people have had a lot of problems with it.  If you load up the board and saturate a single bus completely, the board becomes really unstable among other anomalies people have faced.  

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Posted (edited)

Sorry about that, didnt realize it was private, should work now.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-e3c226d2i    http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-z87ipro  http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-90mb0h30m0eay0  http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-h87iplus  http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-z87eitx

Edited by Laputacake

Steve

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Well, I found no boards with 8 SATA ports. The best I found was the Gigabyte H97N-WIFI, which has 6 of them. Maybe you can get bigger hard drives?

LTT's unofficial Windows activation expert.
 

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I've had none of those problems with mine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157475

 

The newegg reviews aren't confidence inspiring.  If you have had success, that's excellent because it's a really feature packed board that would work perfect for this build, but as of 9/22/14, people are still coming in with complaints of bad boards.

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Well, I found no boards with 8 SATA ports. The best I found was the Gigabyte H97N-WIFI, which has 6 of them. Maybe you can get bigger hard drives?

6TB consumer drives are just about as big as they come.  Lol.  By time I pull the trigger on this machine, they'll probably have 8TB drives out so I'd get those instead or whatever is the largest capacity option available at the time.

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6TB consumer drives are just about as big as they come.  Lol.  By time I pull the trigger on this machine, they'll probably have 8TB drives out so I'd get those instead or whatever is the largest capacity option available at the time.

Ah, sorry, didn't see those guys.

LTT's unofficial Windows activation expert.
 

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ASUS pulled a really bizarre move with their Z97 mini itx motherboards.  Their older Z87 motherboards actually had 6 sata ports, and they removed two of them on the newer platform.  Anyways, 4 sata ports definitely wont work.  I'll be doing Raid 1, so i'll be only able to utilize half my drives for space.

yea how many drivess as it does have an m.2

Please follow your topics guys, it's very important! CoC F.A.Q  Please use the corresponding PC part picker link for your country USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, Italy, New Zealand and Germany

also if you find anyone with this handle in games its most likely me so say hi

 

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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157475

 

The newegg reviews aren't confidence inspiring.  If you have had success, that's excellent because it's a really feature packed board that would work perfect for this build, but as of 9/22/14, people are still coming in with complaints of bad boards.

 

Most of the newer review give no problems and if people had problems, Asrock was fast to offer their help.

Projects | > Project DisplayGRID < | > Portable Virtualization Server < | > CORE GTX < | Projects

Community | > Schnitzel Teamspeak Server < | Community

Guides | > Getting started with a NAS < | > Setting up your Ubiquiti Access Points < | > pfSense Guide < | Guides

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@motonack have you considered using a raid card or something of the sort?

1 Timothy 1:15

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@motonack have you considered using a raid card or something of the sort?

I actually hadn't given it much thought. That could be a very viable solution.  Thanks.

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