What are the chances this would work as the foundation of a 20 drive server along with 4 Adaptec 1430SA cards? Price seemse to be right. If there is nothing about it that is known to be incompatible, I am tempted to get one just to test it out in a 3 drive setup.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186149

 

Is there a better, under $500, way to be able to connect 20 SATA drives?

 

Thanks for any thoughts on the subject.

 

Jerry

 

The only thing you might run into is the the x16 slots will not accept anything but graphics cards.  There have been a few motherboards were that has been the case, so you might want to call the manufacture and ask.

I would be very surprised if they added 4 non-discriminating x16 slots on that board.

FWIW, I was using a Foxconn A7GM-S motherboard with unRAID.  I sent an email to their tech support through the website to ask about using the x16 slot for non-graphics card apps - and they replied within about a day or so that the slot could be used for non-graphics applications such as expansion cards.

 

Might just shoot them an email and see what you learn before you commit any $$.

Well, the board is out of stock and the price listed jumped from $90 to $220 so I won't be testing this any time soon, if at all. He who hesitates looses. I'll be watching for an alternative while collecting some of the other parts I need.

 

Thanks for the pointers.

 

I will let you know when I get mine, but I did do some looking around and saw at least one review that did say you could use the pcie 2.0 x16 slots for expansion cards.  This board can be had for $80 bucks at the links below.  I already have an AMD unraid system and just need the additional on board SATA and hope this will truly work with the expansion cards so I can max it out.

 

This board is on sale at eWiz through google products search http://www.google.com/product_url?q=http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php%3Fp%3DMB-A79AS%26c%3Dfr%26pid%3D6b63c2911fbfdc18f2b7192748bdab4f92a9007dfec3c3b1ac4a2a7fff56041f&fr=AMPyqNIU6H5mAo27SiDl63HddBShLfgFAIrf_kNupckTEOAoO1jYNefIDO1HjoybYdNE-7lCgJ2aZOZrasKPJ9Cpf8YXKtLmpuC94c8rp4h3llgNQfWD3JEB4LUg74jlp7RzkTV3KW8Ur67TQfQrM63VwVY8r8mEtwH8SuyXwS75d1H2IqSFhkuPGeO2cv5AaIUMtCqFPmOs9lJFNMfKF98AAAAAAAAAAA&gl=us&hl=en&sa=title&ei=fPnRS9DmOKbuwAX7iYnjCQ&ved=0CA8QgwgwATgA

 

add eWiz $10 off w/ code IWANT10, ends 4/25

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn't look like there is much interest in this board, but I wanted to try one out since it has 4 x16 slots for very cheap ($86 plus shipping/tax).

 

I put in two Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (10 drives total), and it booted up first time with no problems. Running a parity check now.