StorageWhore wants to go ITX

Rune75

Rune75

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Messages
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I want to go small(er). Going from ATX mobo, 10x5.25 bay full tower, and 12 HHDs to ITX with close to the same storage capability. I do not want a dedicated graphics card. Been thinking of buying a bitfenix prodigy case and mounting more HDD above the mobo from the top of the case. I would like to end up with 9-10HDDs in there. Is this a pipe dream?

1. What will you be doing with this PC? a) HTPC b) NAS

2. What's your budget? 1K-1200$ with tax can go a bit higher for shipping

3. Where do you live? Bremerton, WA. I have a BB 15 minutes away and a Fry's 45min away

4. What exact parts do you need for that budget? ITX Z77 or better, 8-16GB ram, i5-3570K or i7-3770 or close, 1xSSD 240GB+, 550-650watt modular psu, PCIE SATA 6Gb card 4-8ports, Bitfenix Prodigy case (or other with more HDD slots). NO OPTICAL DRIVE.

5. If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? I've got 6x3TB WD or more green drives that will be in the case.

6. What specific features do you need in a motherboard? Required: The more SATA 6Gb the better, onboard graphics, USB3 front and rear. Wanted: Gigabit ethernet.

7. What resolution output do you need? Onboard graphics capable of 1080p video playback to HDMI in my receiver or TV. No multi-monitor.

8. Does this system need to fit into a particular space? Kinda small but not tiny. Prefer Bitfenix Prodigy or smaller.

9. How comfortable are you with custom case design/modification and electrical wiring? I'm fine with tinkering and modifying. Been building PCs since 1989. I have Screwdrivers/Leatherman, Drill, Dremel, Metal snips, Soldering Iron. Access to plasma, water, & laser cutters.

10. How important is the noise/silence of this sytem? The quieter the better. Not water cooled, but I'd like to keep it around 20 to 30ish dB if possible.

11. How mobile does this system need to be? Pull it out to dust every few months

12. Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? Friends at MS. Full retail versions of Win7 Pro 32/64. Will have Win 8 Pro 32/64 too. Can use FreeNAS or other so long as

13. When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Within the month

Questions, advice, thoughts, or laughter?
 
I don't know a lot about stuffing that much storage in an itx box but I do know that most itx boards only have 2 native 6Gb ports on the board. You need to look for a PCI-E add-on cards for more ports.

As for cases: The LIAN LI PC-Q25B can hold 7 drives off the shelf but I don't know that there is room for another 3-5 in the case. The Prodigy is probably your best bet unless you hop up to a m-ATX case.
 
Have you checked out the Fractal Designs Node 304 case? It can hold 6x 3.5" drives (as long as you don't need a huge video card, which you don't seem to need) and is quite a bit smaller than the prodigy.

As for the PSU, why so big? Even with the CPU at max and all six drives spinning up simultaneously, you're looking at *maybe* 200w. And that's unrealistic since you can stagger spin up using AHCI options (if your mobo supports it); you can probably get away with a 150w pico psu. If you don't have staggering, a SFX psu (300w/450w) would be plenty.
 
SithSolo1: I was thinking of the ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe, but it's kinda pricy. It has 2x6Gb and 2x3Gb... Not ideal, but it's a start unless people know of a board with 4+ 6Gb sata...


Machupo: Been a while since I looked... I didn't think there would be any decent, quiet, and modular PSUs below 500watts. Are there any good modular 350 or 400 watt? I always like to overkill a bit.
PC Power and Cooling Silencer MK III 400W Modular 80PLUS Bronze

Antec HCG M Series HCG-400M 400W

Others modular low power PSUs to recommend?

EDIT: I really like the Node 304... Wish it had more HDD space, but it looks great. Concerned about flex or movement with the HDD cages... Wish it had more cooling, but it is a close 2nd to the Prodigy... Would be in first place if I was not thinking of modding the Prodigy to fit more drives.
 
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The Prodigy is actually really big for an ITX case, infact there are smaller mATX cases.

I would go with the LIAN LI PC-Q25B, it really is the perfect mini-NAS case IMO. Node 304 would be my 2nd choice.
 
DSC_0781.jpg


my 10x3.25 drive itx case, have two places for ssd :p only using one
 
leeleatherwood: I know the Prodigy is a rather large case - especially for ITX... It just seems like a great case for a shyteload of extra hard drives... so long as the mobo and sata card support them all.

balance101: Damn, that's kinda sexy... Is that the Lian Li Q18 or Q25? How hot does your case / those drives get?
 
Why do you need so many SATA 6.0Gb/s for? Regular hard drives do not take take advantage of that bandwidth.

Also are you planning on overclocking or something?
 
Danny Bui said:
Why do you need so many SATA 6.0Gb/s for? Regular hard drives do not take take advantage of that bandwidth.

Also are you planning on overclocking or something?
Click to expand...

I am a storage packrat of sorts... Don't want RAID. Just JBOD. I'm sitting at ~23TB on my desktop but I would like to have something smaller. Full tower has always looked kinda out of place. As for SATA2 vs SATA3... If the drive supports it, I wanted to give it all the bandwith I could.

Not planning on overclocking. StorageWhore first, HTPC second, NAS third, sync some media over the net (prolly FTP based) for my android phone. Nothing really taxing except a bunch of VLC player 1080p to my TV over HDMI using on chip graphics.
 
I agree that the pc-q18 and q25 are among the best options for a large number of drives, while the Node 304 is a good solution for slightly fewer drives.

If you are willing to micro-ATX, some of the Rosewill cases could work. Paired with a 3x5.25" bay converter, you can get 10 drives in it and it's about the same size as the Prodigy. You definitely would have a lower quality case though :(
 
Rune75 said:
As for SATA2 vs SATA3... If the drive supports it, I wanted to give it all the bandwith I could.
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It wouldn't really make a difference. Plus as you can tell by now, that requirement limits your options severely.

Rune75 said:
Not planning on overclocking.
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In that case, no reason for you to get the 3570K then or that Asus ITX mobo. For your needs, at most, you'll be fine with the Core i5 3470 and this Asus ITX mobo:
$100 - Asus P8H77-I Intel H77 mITX Motherboard
 
That i5 3470 good enough to play 1080p movies in VLC without extracting the flick from the RAR files? I was looking at those two chips because they have intel 4000.

I really like the Asus P8H77-I... Any recommendations for a decent 8 port SATA card?
 
Rune75 said:
That i5 3470 good enough to play 1080p movies in VLC without extracting the flick from the RAR files? I was looking at those two chips because they have intel 4000.
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VLC is still primarily CPU based. So doesn't really matter what GPU you have since it's all being done on the CPU anyway. As such, the i5 3470 is the same as the i5 3570K or i7 3770 in that regards.

Rune75 said:
Any recommendations for a decent 8 port SATA card?
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Find out what balance101 uses. Although the card that SithSolo1 listed is fairly overpriced for what it is.
 
There sure seems to be a lot of issues getting that card to work in JBOD... And it needs active cooling?
 
well if you flash the M1015 to IT mode, your mother board will only see it as HBA

card does get warm but passive cooling is good enough =)
 
balance101 said:
well if you flash the M1015 to IT mode, your mother board will only see it as HBA

card does get warm but passive cooling is good enough =)
Click to expand...

Got a PDF or something I can read on it? EDIT: Recomendation for cables? Short ones if possible. Never dealt with a SAS card

Found a Areca ARC-1280ML 24 Port Sata Raid Controller for 150$ so far on ebay... hmmm
 
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Not really sure what you are after but have you ever though of an external enclosure to host a majority of your drives? If you had the proper esata port you could run one of these 8 bay units http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111168 where it would hook to your minipc through esata. It also comes with a card to do this. I am not 100% on the terminology but I think the tech is called port mirroring. I had the intel 1156 itx board with this built into the esata port where I could have run this externally. This way you could virtually use any mitx case and run the majority of your drives in this thing. I think that way you could maximize volume use.
 
rhansen5_99: I appreciate the tip, but I'm not into external boxes... It's just not my bag, baby! (Austin Powers) If after I fill up the mini like Balance has, and refill the 14x3.5 HDD in my desktop - then I might think about it.
 
ND40oz: Why would I want to use RAID when I want just a bunch of disks? Good tip on MonoPrice... Love those guys.

Danny Bui: Loos like I got some reading to do... thanks dude
 
Rune75 said:
ND40oz: Why would I want to use RAID when I want just a bunch of disks? Good tip on MonoPrice... Love those guys.
Click to expand...

I guess if you don't mind restoring from backup when you lose a disk then you can stick with JBOD.
 
For sas break out cable I just order them on ebay, cheaper than monoprice because shipping kills the deal for me.

You might want to look into unpaid or flex raid or snapraid

I use Zfs because data integrity and awesome performance
 
fwiw, I'm using an old Perc5i in my Q25 w/ 8x2TB HDDs. Works fine for storage and they are dirt cheap on ebay. I'm not sure your going to find a mitx case with more 3.5" drives bays then the Q25. If you do.. let me know! heh

Another option would be to find the smallest case with 9 external 5.25 bays. Then use 3 x 5in3 sata bays for 15 drives.
 
magnetik: I have a 10x5.25 full atx currently... I have 3 Silverstone bay converters that change 3x5.25 to hold 4 HDD with a 120mm fan in front... That holds 12HDD plus the two 3.5 spaces that the case came with...

I was really thinking of the Bitfenix Prodigy for a while cause I could use the 6 drive slots and mount a couple of those silverstone converters from the top of the case for another 8 drives...
 
I know you said that you want an all in one solution, I used to feel that way myself - but I really think you should consider a separate NAS. I have a mini-ITX build small, cool and quiet and a seperate NAS in another room and I love it and I think it would meet most everything you want to achieve.

You an get one of these for $299:

SC846TQ-R900B_spec.jpg


at http://www.avsforum.com/t/1412640/are-you-looking-for-a-less-expensive-norco-4220-4224-alternative

or to save money you could turn your old ATX into a NAS.

Use something like UNRAID - you only lose 1 drive to redundancy(parity drive) no matter how many drive you have and you have some data security and a lot of flexibility.

You just stick this box in a closet somewhere and forget about it, lol.

Then you go ahead and build your small and quiet mini-ITX HTPC. You can go tiny or you can still go with a large ITX case and have a bunch of additional internal storage.

Hell, you said you like storage - you could end up with 100+ terabytes. :D

Have fun and good luck with whatever you go with.
 
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