I am using XPenology and Gnoboot. With some minor modifications you can add six HDDs. Four on the internal SAS connector, one on the eSATA port and one on the optical disk SATA connector. To add four more SATA ports I got my hands on a SAS Mini PCIe card. Very cheap. It is using a Marvell 88SE9230 chipset and comes with a half height bracket. It will not offer any RAID options on a hardware level, just offering more SATA connectors for your machine. It runs off a PCIe x2 slot.
Works out of the box with Xpenology. Now you can add up to 10 HDDs to your microserver. The controller card is just 18 EUR at a webstore, just google for "Conrad 989120". If you can´t find that particular model, you might just use any other card with the same chipset.
The required "mini-SAS male to 4xSATA male" cable is nearly as expensive as the controller. You will also need some Molex to SATA power cables and splitters.
Works out of the box with Xpenology. Now you can add up to 10 HDDs to your microserver. The controller card is just 18 EUR at a webstore, just google for "Conrad 989120". If you can´t find that particular model, you might just use any other card with the same chipset.
The required "mini-SAS male to 4xSATA male" cable is nearly as expensive as the controller. You will also need some Molex to SATA power cables and splitters.
