Lian Li PC-Q25B for $70 after MIR and Promo code at Newegg

[cbunn]

I paid nearly twice as much for the Lian Li PC-Q25B at Newegg a couple months ago, so suffice it to say that I'm a little annoyed at this sale. But perhaps some others might save some money on a very nice mini-ITX case.

The list price is $119.99. The promo code EMCYTZT2927 takes $35 off that and there is a mail-in rebate for another $15 off. Free shipping is offered, as well. The deal ends 2/13/2013.

 

[Basilisk]

It's a great deal on a wee bit odd case -- it lacks front ports (USB, etc) and optical drive access, but can hold a an almost ridiculous Eight 3.5" drives (I only know of One mITX m/b that comes close to supporting that many).

I've had it sitting in my NE cart all day, undecided, and leaning towards a "pass" as I can't come to terms with mITX's single PCI-e slot. Wish there was a popular 2-slot m/b of comparable size.

 

[Zxian]

I wish I could get this in Canada. NewEgg is exceptionally tight when it comes to their US-only restrictions.

 

[zposter]

Thanks for posting this! I already have one of these cases running WHS. It's such a great case I had to get another.

It goes very well with a motherboard that has 6 SATA ports, like some Asus models.

 

[cbunn]

It's a great deal on a wee bit odd case -- it lacks front ports (USB, etc) and optical drive access, but can hold a an almost ridiculous Eight 3.5" drives (I only know of One mITX m/b that comes close to supporting that many).

I believe the intent of this case is to be a sleek small form-factor NAS. In which case, neither front ports nor an optical drive justify their presence. And for this intent, it might be the best in show.

As for motherboard ports, it's true that most top out at 4, but there are some which have six. More importantly, it's easy to add a PCI-E controller to have as many drives as will fit.

I've had it sitting in my NE cart all day, undecided, and leaning towards a "pass" as I can't come to terms with mITX's single PCI-e slot. Wish there was a popular 2-slot m/b of comparable size.

If you find such a board, be sure to let the rest of us know. I'm fairly certain you won't find a mini-ITX board with more than one slot.

I suppose I'm left wondering what use case you are trying to fill here.

 

[zerogear]

I build this into my server running Essentials 2012 -- definitely meant for being a headless server/NAS case. Allows up to 9 drives in this small (ish) case.

 

[evident]

man... i really want this.

 

[ElFenix]

If you find such a board, be sure to let the rest of us know. I'm fairly certain you won't find a mini-ITX board with more than one slot.

that's because mini-ITX is limited to 1 slot. mini-DTX has 2.

see picture here:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/techtalk_cont.php?area=&tid=wh09_0056

newegg doesn't have any mini-DTX boards. it was an AMD standard so i'm not sure many vendors picked it up.

 

[zposter]

A great mini-ITX board with 6 SATA ports:

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-P8H77-I

This was the cheapest place I could find it and it's an additional $10 (10%) off with coupon code HEARTBEAT (expires on the 18th).

 

[Basilisk]

I believe the intent of this case is to be a sleek small form-factor NAS.

(a) It's not labeled as a NAS box -- although I'd agree that's all it's well suited for; (b) many purchasers bought it for an HTPC and I mentioned the oddity of "excessive" drives bays versus missing options front-features as a consideration for non-NAS use.

As for motherboard ports, it's true that most top out at 4, but there are some which have six. More importantly, it's easy to add a PCI-E controller to have as many drives as will fit.

When I checked a few days ago, NE carried [i.e. indexed] NO Intel mITX boards with more than 2 sATA-III ports, 1 AMD with 7 sATA-III and 2 AMD with 4. Let's not get into a II vs III discussion, but I only use III for non-ODD drives, which to me means there's only 1 m/b that merits this case's drive capacity on its own IMO.

PCI-e sATA controllers abound, a number supporting 4 III ports (or SAS) though many have limitations (particularly in the number of PCIe lanes supported [hence throughput]). With the single slot used up, gone are other options like LAN-teaming or working around m/b failures or limitations. The latter may not concern some folks, but I've had LAN-port and graphics failures on m/b's and always worked around them with spare slots.

(Mini-DTX theoretically offered 2 slots, but most boards either dedicated 1 or more to included features or dropped them. mDTX was also about an inch wider than required judging by ITX compactness.)

If you find such a board, be sure to let the rest of us know. I'm fairly certain you won't find a mini-ITX board with more than one slot.

I never mentioned mITX in that wish: mITX [obv.] only supports one slot, but I wish there were an prevalent standard supporting 2 slots in the general size/scale of mITX. Many mITX cases have a second rear opening for cable-attached hardware, so it wouldn't seem big leap to create some "maxi"[?]-ITX standard with the board extended for one more slot. But it doesn't exist, I'm not expecting it soon, and yet I'm not sold on mITX's single slot.

I suppose I'm left wondering what use case you are trying to fill here.

NAS, HTPC, light-weight computing -- anything that can be run on low heat loading hardware.

 

[Basilisk]

newegg doesn't have any mini-DTX boards. it was an AMD standard so i'm not sure many vendors picked it up.

FWIW: ZOTAC NM10-B-E-ION
'Not endorsing this board in any way... but there's your mDTX!

 

[Basilisk]

A great mini-ITX board with 6 SATA ports:....

Greatness is in the eye of the beholder. As I noted in a post, above, Intel mITX boards (currently) support at most 2 sATA-III (6-Gb/s) ports.

Does dropping to 3-Gb/s sATA matter? That's arguable, but its throughput constraints might come into play with RAID striping, more than 2 SSD's or just with accesses to on-disk cached data.

Edit: I accidentally fell into a subset of NE's boards when I first posted this, accidentaly getting "Combo" items (boards with CPU) instead of bare boards.
​

The ASROCK FM2A85X-ITX is the board I've favored. (I think one of its seven 6-Gb/s ports is shared with the e-sATA.) But there are two other AMD boards with six 6-Gb/s ports (no CPU) and two boards "combo'd" with a CPU (of which I only received a "hit" on the weak one for some reason, as another poster noted).

For a NAS box, the somewhat higher heat and lower computational top end of today's AMD isn't an issue. Heck, this case isn't of much use for any heavy crunching.

 

[Zxian]

The ASUS E35M1I also has six 6Gbps ports, and the processor has more oomph than the C60. It's not a huge margin, but the E-350 can decode full BluRay movies while the C60 may struggle.

 

[zposter]

Greatness is in the eye of the beholder. As I noted in a post, above, Intel mITX boards (currently) support at most 2 sATA-III (6-Gb/s) ports.

Does dropping to 3-Gb/s sATA matter? That's arguable, but its throughput constraints might come into play with RAID striping, more than 2 SSD's or just with accesses to on-disk cached data.

I would expect that most people are going to put hard drives in this enclosure since multiple SSDs can go in just about anything. So SATA-3 isn't much of a factor. I have a config with this enclosure and motherboard and I put a SSD containing the OS on one of the SATA-3 ports, and hard drives on the rest.

I would rather have more horsepower (and flexibility) than the low-power AMD chips provide. Been there, done that. My previous build with this MB and enclosure used a low-power i3 since it's on 24/7. I might put an i5 in this one for a little more responsiveness, depending on what I'm going to do with it. The MB and enclosure can handle that just fine.

 

[MrX8503]

This is a great NAS box that can hold 8 drives.

Paired it with a 1155 mini itx with 6 sata. There aren't many itx boards with that many ports and can support a beefier CPU.

I plan on transcoding so that's why I went with 1155.