Small Desktop NAS

[Zeus]

I'm planning on building a small NAS (hopefully Mini-ITX sized). Obviously, there is a premium with purchasing a pre-packaged disk-less solution, so I'd prefer to build one. I've attempted to plan it out, but I'm having an issue finding a motherboard which has more than 2 SATA III ports in the Mini-ITX form factor. I've decided on the Zotac H67ITX-C-E at this point, which has 4 SATA II and 2 SATA III. I know I can add a PCIE card if needed, but that'll basically double the cost of the motherboard, so I don't really want to do that. I've built a system at $458.89 using PCPartPicker.

Does anyone have any advice to upping the available SATA III ports, or anything else I seem to have missed?

[Guest]

You could just get a SATA 3 expansion card for $20?

[Reily]

I may be pointing you in the wrong direction for your desires, however you could invest in something like a synology.

They come in ranges of drive sizes(2-6 i believe) and are smaller than most mitx builds i've seen. They have gigabit lan to connect to router/switch allowing you to

share media over your network, and also allow for storage. The synology apps that come with make backing up and other essentials like this really easy, as well as

making downloading stuff extremely easy. For example, after joining a newsgroup i set the app up to download all the tv shows i want when they are uploaded, when its done downloading

i get a message on my phone. When i'm done watching i clear the message.

The one i have costs around 600$ and has 4 drive bays, it is currently backing up 2 computers, as well as streaming media to a ps3, xbox360, 2 pcs, and my phone when in the hottub.

It also has 2 sata outs and 2 usb 3.0 outs for the sake of building your storage with external drives, and has capability of multiple raid setups.

[Zeus]

You could just get a SATA 3 expansion card for $20?

Can you recommend a specific one? I can find ones for like $25 but only having 2 ports, but

if I'm going to add another card, I'd like to have 4 ports, but those seem to be near $100, which will bring the entire cost up a bit too much.

[Zeus]

I may be pointing you in the wrong direction for your desires' date=' however you could invest in something like a synology. They come in ranges of drive sizes(2-6 i believe) and are smaller than most mitx builds i've seen. They have gigabit lan to connect to router/switch allowing you to share media over your network, and also allow for storage. The synology apps that come with make backing up and other essentials like this really easy, as well as making downloading stuff extremely easy. For example, after joining a newsgroup i set the app up to download all the tv shows i want when they are uploaded, when its done downloading i get a message on my phone. When i'm done watching i clear the message. The one i have costs around 600$ and has 4 drive bays, it is currently backing up 2 computers, as well as streaming media to a ps3, xbox360, 2 pcs, and my phone when in the hottub. It also has 2 sata outs and 2 usb 3.0 outs for the sake of building your storage with external drives, and has capability of multiple raid setups. [/quote']

Thanks, but yeah, I prefer not to have a Synology. They're about $100 more than what I've built, and mine is a full computer, which I can actually run some other stuff on it, and upgrade it later.