I've spent most of the day finding this out, so I'll pass it on..

I need a server with lots of SATA ports. 7, in fact.

I have a P5QL Pro here and it only has 6. And then 1 x PCIex16 and 2 PCIex1 slots and 3 PCI ones.

Question: how to get more SATA ports?

Can't do it via PCIex8, unless I can find a PCIex1 Gfx card (which theoretically exist - well one, anyway) and that is from Zotac. Not available, €50.

Alternative? Hmm. What about that D945GCLF2 board? Nope. Turns out - according to the information here - https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/articles/s/a/t/SATA_hardware_features_8af2.html that ICH7 is not Port Multiplier capable. PM would be the way forward - just take one port, add a multiplier and you suddenly have 5.

Except it's not quite that simple, as it appears that only certain implementations of eSATA support it. ICH9R, ICH10R and ICH10DO do, ICH7, ICH7ME (which is in this laptop) doesn't.
With this in mind, I then went through pretty much all of the cheap board / SATA card combos I could find, looking for a small board with a *fully working* PCIex16 connection. /Most of the Intel boards admit from the start that the x16 is not suitable for anything other than gfx, other mfrs are not so open!/

I've come up with a couple of gems:
- the Asus P5G41T (in any flavour) supports Socket 775 and a maximum of 8GB of DDR3. This rocks, as DDR2 is currently running €23 for 2GB and DDR2 would be €32 for 8. No contest there, for the server.
What I can't confirm is that the board will work with the x16 port. So I'll leave that for the moment.

- the Intel documentation is excellent. If you've worked out that they are *marketing* they are also very truthful - if it's not advertised, it probably won't work. Personal favourites included the DG41AN, S1200KP and DG45FC boards: the S1200 is a serious server board and will take 16GB memory in mini-itx format but demands an i3.

- The Supermicro X7HSPA set only has one "flaw" from here, and that's the limitation of 4GB of memory. I'd like to feed the server at least 8, as it won't be used very heavily but it should still be fast enough to kick butt - but this board is also Mini-ITX and has an ICH9R onboard, along with an Atom, so the total power consumption of the board is minimal.

- over on Amazon.de, you can get a DeLock 310e, which is a four port PCIex1 SATA adapter, for less than €40. That is a bargain, especially as the chip is a Silicon Image 3132, which should be PM-capable.

So, what am I going to do? I might try and find one of those Asus boards, as the P5QL would work nicely as the HTPC itself and the P5G41 could then play server. I dare say it won't make too much difference, except for the fact that I could buy the board and fill it with memory for less than 6GB on the other board. Crazy but true....
The nice bit about running the disks on a seperate machine to the HTPC is that the HTPC then could actually be a d945GSET, which is a stupidly small (think 7"x7"x1") box which is still capable - at least with a Broadcom Mini PCI-e Crystal HD card - of showing fullHD material. That's quite a feat for a box that big! The Crystal cards aren't even expensive, either, at around €40. Cartft.com also has a deal on - the board and a PSU for €90. That's damned good.

I'll work on getting another 775 processor, I think, and that P5G41 and then see what happens. I'll need to have the machines running and installable before new year, so I have some work to do.

- Bret