Replace the motherboard with a nuc one

[tyler_durden_83]

Dear friends,
I was thinking if it'd be doable to replace a very dated qnap 439 pro 2 board (with a 10w single core atom) with say this: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... 7100u.html a 15w but configurable tdp down to 7.5w intel nuc board.

Would it even be possible?
Thank you and have a nice day

[P3R]

Everything is possible given enough determination, skill and funds. That said, also remember truth #3 of RFC 1925: With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.

The challenge that I come to think of first is that as far as I know Intel NUC have only two SATA ports and they probably don't connect directly to the disk backplane.

[tyler_durden_83]

The challenge that I come to think of first is that as far as I know Intel NUC have only two SATA ports and they probably don't connect directly to the disk backplane.

That was one of the things I was wondering myself (simplifying though, 2x sata 3 of the nuc provide the same bandwidth of 4x sata 2 of the qnap board), sadly there is virtually no teardown on the net of these qnap models, so I'm a bit blind as to what is actually inside them apart from the component names. I can't even seem to find the motherboard dimensions....

[P3R]

That was one of the things I was wondering myself (simplifying though, 2x sata 3 of the nuc provide the same bandwidth of 4x sata 2 of the qnap board)...

Well I guess that's one way to look at it...

...sadly there is virtually no teardown on the net of these qnap models, so I'm a bit blind as to what is actually inside them apart from the component names. I can't even seem to find the motherboard dimensions....

A ruler will give you the dimensions but If you don't feel technical enough to do the teardown yourself, then I think that you won't pull a build like this off.

There's a reason there are very few real custom builds based on Qnap that doesn't look hideous with bits and pieces far outside the chassis.

It would be nice to see some well done recycling of old Qnap chassis...

[tyler_durden_83]

A ruler will give you the dimensions but If you don't feel technical enough to do the teardown yourself, then I think that you won't pull a build like this off.

I'm confident, when it will die! Considering that it's from 2010, I'm getting some info in advance just in case
Overall I feel relatively confident, I've done other DIY projects like my own car dash / nexus 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqFt-dQSoEU
I've seen a teardown of a 4 bay model that might be similar to mine here: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/qn ... 054-3.html
From there I see that the PSU provides power to the mainboard and to the 4x PCI-E board that hosts the 4 sata ports. This seems like a good starting point for me. The NUC board has a 4x PCI-E connector, albeit in a different phisical position, therefore I'd need to use a male/female cable that I've seen on Amazon for 10 bucks. It says that the power through the PCI-E connection alone isn't enough, so the PSU provides additional power to the board. This also seems doable as in my case the PSU won't provide power to the motherboard, as the NUC board doesn't have a 24 pin socket but rather a classic external PSU connector, so the PSU inside the Qnap would be used exclusively to power the disks.