ZOTAC H55ITX-C-E - looks like a promising new miniITX board

[Rajahal]

ZOTAC H55ITX-C-E LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

 

Currently $109, or $89 after MIR

 

Seems like a promising new board for an i3 build, and it has a lot of nice modern features.  6 onboard SATA ports (which is unusual for miniITX boards), and a PCIe x16 slot for expansion.  You could max it out at 14 drives with the addition of a SASLP card, and get that 15th drive using the rear eSATA port.  Personally, I would probably use it for an 8 drive server (adding a cheap 2 port PCIe x1).

 

As far as I know, this is the first i3 miniITX board with 6 onboard SATA ports and a full PCIe x16 expansion slot.  It is at least the first in this price range.  It would also make a nice HTPC board.

 

I doubt anyone has tested this board yet as it is so new, but anyone has, please share!

[BRiT]

I've been using this (or at least the WiFi version of it) as my main WinOS system with an i3 530 CPU for a while now (~6 months) without issue. I have not tried updating the BIOS, nor have I tried running unRAID on it.

 

At that price point, it's a nice little board.

[yelnatsch517]

I'm currently using the Zotac G43ITX-A-E with 5 SATA ports and full PCI-Ex16 slot, but just tested it last night and couldn't get SATA controllers,Ebay(x1) and Supermicro(x4), to work with it.  Do SATA controllers work with the H55ITX-C-E board?

[Bizarroterl]

I'm currently using the Zotac G43ITX-A-E with 5 SATA ports and full PCI-Ex16 slot, but just tested it last night and couldn't get SATA controllers,Ebay(x1) and Supermicro(x4), to work with it.  Do SATA controllers work with the H55ITX-C-E board?

 

I have one of these (G43ITX-A-E) on order and plan to use a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 in it.  Have you had any luck getting it to work?