BitFenix Home Server Build -- ITX board with 6 SATA ports?

[Going Bald]

I'm looking to build a system this summer with a Haswell i5. Not sure if I'll be overclocking; if so, it won't be anything extreme, so a z-series is not absolutely necessary.

I want to build a desktop/home server build in a BitFenix Prodigy, which means I'll need a board with 6 SATA ports. However, as I've been looking at IB compatible motherboards, I'm not seeing any boards with more than 4 ports.

All three of these have at least a DVI and a DP. The H77 ASUS has a VGA D-Sub instead of the HDMI the other 2 have.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132028
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132032
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157374

 

[wiz329]

Right -- none of the boards I could find with 6 SATA ports were Gigabyte boards. Will that be a problem?

 

[Going Bald]

Right -- none of the boards I could find with 6 SATA ports were Gigabyte boards. Will that be a problem?

Should not be. I had little trouble with the P8Z77-I mITX build. Only had to flash the BIOS to unlock MSR.
From what I hear, the Asus boards might all have the MSR unlocked in the BIOS for the Haswell boards.
I am real tempted by the Asus 87i board even though I do not need a new build at this time. Maybe I can find someone who wants it and will let me build it for them

 

[wiz329]

That's awesome.

As far as networking, can I expect the ethernet port to work, but the wifi and bluetooth not to work?

 

[Going Bald]

That's awesome.

As far as networking, can I expect the ethernet port to work, but the wifi and bluetooth not to work?

Ethernet NIC port should work as it is Intel .I don't know what card Asus is installing for BT/WiFi. If it is the same as the Z77 board, BT will work from a warm reboot from Win7/8 but not from a cold boot and WiFi not at all. We will have to wait until someone posts a build to find out for sure.

 

[wiz329]

How will I know if I have to flash the BIOS? I have ordered the Asus board ... and pretty much everything except the CPU and RAM. Trying to catch a good price.

 

[Going Bald]

How will I know if I have to flash the BIOS? I have ordered the Asus board ... and pretty much everything except the CPU and RAM. Trying to catch a good price.

Install and reboot. If it does not kp with a backtrace to AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext then you probably won't need to patch/flash the BIOS.

 

[wiz329]

I apologize -- i haven't done this before actually -- I don't know exactly what you mean by some of your terminology. Could you explain a little bit more about "kp" and "backtrace" and after I install what exactly -- unibeast? multibeast?

 

[Going Bald]

I apologize -- i haven't done this before actually -- I don't know exactly what you mean by some of your terminology. Could you explain a little bit more about "kp" and "backtrace" and after I install what exactly -- unibeast? multibeast?

KP = kernel panic - essentially, something caused the boot sequence to fail.
Usually on the screen is a kernel panic notice and a list of addresses followed by a note that the panic cause was back traced to a particular kext.

 

[wiz329]

KP = kernel panic - essentially, something caused the boot sequence to fail.
Usually on the screen is a kernel panic notice and a list of addresses followed by a note that the panic cause was back traced to a particular kext.

I finally got all my components. However, when I tried to boot into unibeast, it briefly showed the apple logo, before the screen went black, and the reboot sequence started again.

What does this mean?

I am using an i5 4670k (no dGPU)
with an h87i-plus mobo.

Here is the last thing before it rebooted and went back to the UEFI: