feed the [NAS] storage demands of boxee or other uses.. mmm overkill
http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_port_multipliers/
Benefits of port multipliers:
Controller and the cabling cost is very low, compared to multilane alternatives when using a large number of drives. The solution occupies only 1 slot in your server, whereas a 12 or 16 port multilane solution would need at least 2 slots. It is the only way to have JBOD mode hot-swapping with more than four drives in a single slot. You can have 5 or 10 bays in a tower enclosure as opposed to 4 or 8 with our other solutions. If necessary, it is possible to convert the connection to USB via our eSATA to USB adapters.
Limitations of port multipliers:
If you have high-bandwidth slots (PCI-X or PCIe), performance will be limited to 300MB/s, unlike multilane enclosures. You will be limited to non-caching controllers and you will not be able to use RAID 6.
Benefits of port multipliers:
Controller and the cabling cost is very low, compared to multilane alternatives when using a large number of drives. The solution occupies only 1 slot in your server, whereas a 12 or 16 port multilane solution would need at least 2 slots. It is the only way to have JBOD mode hot-swapping with more than four drives in a single slot. You can have 5 or 10 bays in a tower enclosure as opposed to 4 or 8 with our other solutions. If necessary, it is possible to convert the connection to USB via our eSATA to USB adapters.
Limitations of port multipliers:
If you have high-bandwidth slots (PCI-X or PCIe), performance will be limited to 300MB/s, unlike multilane enclosures. You will be limited to non-caching controllers and you will not be able to use RAID 6.
If boxee box had bothered to use eSataP ports instead of only [useless] USB then:
http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_enclosures/
… Or interface overkill: with 3.0Gbps eSATA, FireWire 800, iSCSI/AoE and USB3
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/esatafirewire800iscsiaoeusb.htm [Areca 5040]