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SFF Data Server

P

petesmc

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 11, 2002
Messages
291
Hi,

Thinking about setting up a headless remote file server for data backup purposes. It will reside in a friends house in a different country so will need to be very small and discrete. I'm looking for a case/mobo combo that will satisfy these requirements.

- Tiny
- 6 internal hdds (5 2tb drivers + SSD for OS/apps)
- NO optical drive => need 6 SATA ports on mobo
- Low power

Anything like this on the market at the moment?
 
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The Qmicra QV2E can house 8 hard drives if you are not using an optical drive, just one of the drives would be laying in the case but the other 7 would have a mounted home. The company that sells the case is selling the last of the refurbish ones right now and they have about 6 or so left last I checked, and those are going for $179.95.

There are plenty of choices for motherboards that will support 6 or so sata ports, but there aren't any atom boards that will support that many ports. It will all depend on the board you choose with the power consumption.

Just thought about it some more. You could get a atom d510 board which come in the itx form factor and those have 2 sata ports and you could slap on there a sata controller card and call it a day.
 
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I think the Lian Li PC-Q08 is the smallest you can go and have room for 6 hard drives, I wouldn't call it tiny though. Zotac has a H55 itx board with 6 sata but that's not low power. I agree with Darkamek, go with an atom board and sata card, probably the lowest power draw you could find.
 
Darkamek said:
Just thought about it some more. You could get a atom d510 board which come in the itx form factor and those have 2 sata ports and you could slap on there a sata controller card and call it a day.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I did. Motherboard was about 25 & controller was about 30. So much less then the super micro boards listed above, but the sm would be the better fit if cost is not an issue.
 
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Yoy0YO said:
CHENBRO ES34069-BK-180 Black SECC Pedestal Server Chassis 180W
Not certain about this one. It says that it can hold 4 3.5 hddrives, 1 2.5 hddrives and 1 slim optical, you could squeeze in a 5th 3.5 hddrive maybe
Also, I don't know aobut this one's 180w psu.
Click to expand...

Note: I have this case. It is nice, but it is REALLY small. It will fit four 3.5" drives (in hotswap bays) and one 2.5" drive internally, and that is it. There is no room for anything else.
 
ilikecake said:
Note: I have this case. It is nice, but it is REALLY small. It will fit four 3.5" drives (in hotswap bays) and one 2.5" drive internally, and that is it. There is no room for anything else.
Click to expand...

I have also heard that its kinda loud. But I have no personal experience with it. I was thinking about it, but decided since my server was headless anyway I would jsut put it somewhere where size wasnt an issue & mounted my Mini ITX board in an Antec 300. Only fan in the thing is in the Corsair hx520 PSU (PSU came from my gaming rig, I diddnt buy that expensive of a PSU for it)
 
Fractal Design has a mini ITX NAS chassis that holds 6 drives. Don't know about pricing or availability, only that it isn't available in the USA. For motherboard, wow, those SuperMicro boards look impressive! Other than that, just any Atom board with a PCIe slot for a SATA card.
 
I was looking for a smiliar solution last year and went with an older Morex Venus 668 Mini-ITX case. It has 2 x 5.25 bays and 2 x 3.5 bays. With the right adapter, you can fit 5 drives. Without modding you could cram 12 laptop drives in it although I was limited to 10 because of the mobo(2)+controller(8). New mobos have 4-6 sata on it, so I might upgrade later.

I did consider this case that can also fit at least 5, maybe 6 with some jury rigging. I'm not exactly sure how much clearance the last bay has, but you may able to cram a 6th drive in there. It has modding potential though :-D

http://www.servercase.com/Merchant2...ROD&Product_Code=QBox4&Category_Code=Mini-ITX

I might pick one up for an esxi nas...
 
This:

Bookmage said:
I was looking for a smiliar solution last year and went with an older Morex Venus 668 Mini-ITX case. It has 2 x 5.25 bays and 2 x 3.5 bays. With the right adapter, you can fit 5 drives.
Click to expand...


I have made 2 such boxes out of the Morex 668 case. Just a little modding and a custom faceplate will allow a 5-in-3 adaptor for the 3.5" drives. There is plenty of room for a 2-1/2" laptop drive atatched to the bottom of the case in front of the motherboard. That's how I did it. That is a decent amount of storage in a quite small package.
 
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