Laptop users SLAVE Box. Guide: Thin Mini ITX Mobo, Case, PSU

[crashnburn]

A laptop users SLAVE Box. Need Advise: Thin/ Mini ITX Mobo + Tiny Case + PSU?

- ATV/ Mac Mini/ NUC like Case/ or little larger as well - like a thick/ big book
- But not the Mini-ITX towers/ desktops I see.

Typical use this for:
- XBMC/ Kodi streaming from Synology NAS
- Maybe offload my downloading/ torrents etc to this box
So,
- Usually will contain a single Drive: Old 2.5" HDD/ SSD to start & some RAM

BUT - Main reason for buying - Once in a while hack/ heavy use:

The max I will load it with hardware is when we
PLUG in 2 or 3 new or old 3.5" / NAS Drives - {Wont fit inside obviously - Can lie around}

Typically for overnight burn in tests; dban, badblocks, chkdsk, SMART/ Surface Tests, Seagate/ WD Tests
Sometimes HDD/ Partition Cloning / Ghosting etc.

On a laptop, this is stuff that's slow, hot & time consuming - not easy or done well.
Hence, delegate to a Slave Box.

I hope the PSU can handle 2/3 drives for short term burning:
Open to advise/ recommendations on inside/ outside power supply; 100 - 240 V - May take it for long term global travel.


- DISPLAY:
- No gaming performance required/ not majorly anyways
- Will be using QHD or UHD/ 4K Display - Monitor or TV as I thrive on High Res workspace
.. Hence preferably
- DP 1.new HDMI 1.4/2.0 @60Hz would be key
- Dual Link DVI D / I as a second nice/ must have
- VGA/ D-Sub - not key but hey no harm if its there else can use an Adapter

Slave Box:
- I'm primarily a laptop user for 10+ years
- I'd just like a small, compact SLAVE Box to delegate things to, without having to stop work on my laptop

- At times I need for format, image, clone HDDs & hack around, do multi boot experiments etc.
- For that I don't need a big PC

- Just something that has bunch of HDD/ SSD ports to plug into:
- SATA / eSATA?? / USB 3.0/3.1??

Nice To Have:
- m.2 ports - Mainly future proofing; Will add if price diff not huge for Mobo?
Just started reading about them & given SSD prices are falling be nice to have for faster Storage & Bus performance
..

- Mac OSX friendly - Ignore this part if its taboo on this forum.

Bonus:
- Dual GigE NICs - Just in case i want to run a Network Appliance like pFsense/ Sophos on it

[Abula]

For case look into Antec ISK 110, its a small mini itx case, that can hold 2x 2.5 ssd/hdd, not that big either and already comes with PSU. I leave you a video for you see if it fits what you are looking for, Antec ISK 110 Mini ITX Build Part 2: Time Lapse System Build

On the motherboard.... all displayports on Skylake should support 4k @ 60hz, but its going to be tough to get DP + DVI + VGA, most only come with 2 video out, the only that i saw with triple video that have Displayport + DVI + HDMI is ASRock Z170M-ITX/AC (also has dual Lan, intel and realtek), if you were to accept Displayport and dual HDMI look into ASRock Fatal1ty Gaming Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac, the rest you either have to sacrifice displayport or accept only 2 video outs.

Now if you were to be fine with Haswell instead of Skylake, some other options open up, that are worth considering,
GIGABYTE GA-Q87N DP + DVI + DVI
ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac DP + DVI + HDMI + HDMI
ASUS H97I-PLUS DP + DVI + HDMI + VGA
GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z97N-Gaming 5 DP + DVI + HDMI

Crosshceck the manuals if the DVIs are dual link.

[crashnburn]

Thank you Abula - That is a lovely response. I will have go through these all at length and thoroughly before coming back to you if at all with more questions/ constraints.

For case look into Antec ISK 110, its a small mini itx case, that can hold 2x 2.5 ssd/hdd, not that big either and already comes with PSU. I leave you a video for you see if it fits what you are looking for, Antec ISK 110 Mini ITX Build Part 2: Time Lapse System Build

On the motherboard.... all displayports on Skylake should support 4k @ 60hz, but its going to be tough to get DP + DVI + VGA, most only come with 2 video out, the only that i saw with triple video that have Displayport + DVI + HDMI is ASRock Z170M-ITX/AC (also has dual Lan, intel and realtek), if you were to accept Displayport and dual HDMI look into ASRock Fatal1ty Gaming Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac, the rest you either have to sacrifice displayport or accept only 2 video outs.

Now if you were to be fine with Haswell instead of Skylake, some other options open up, that are worth considering,
GIGABYTE GA-Q87N DP + DVI + DVI
ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac DP + DVI + HDMI + HDMI
ASUS H97I-PLUS DP + DVI + HDMI + VGA
GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z97N-Gaming 5 DP + DVI + HDMI

Crosshceck the manuals if the DVIs are dual link.