Of course the vim form factor can’t work. Please read what I’ve written above about similarity with ODROID HC2. It’s about
- a large aluminium ‘enclosure’ where a 3.5" disk will be screwed to
- the little VIMS PCB will be directly connected via the usual SATA+SATA-power connector but also providing 3 more SATA connectors and one SATA power (or Molex) connector
- the S922X needs to be on the lower PCB side to be directly attached to the large aluminium ‘heatsink’ to efficiently dissipate the heat away from the SoC
- the enclosure needs to be stackable just like ODROID HC1/HC2 or the Cloudmedia Transformer. That’s the real deal.
Maybe a drawing is better:
The PCB should use the whole ‘enclosure’ width to host the three additional SATA connectors and the SATA power connector. The very same enclosure can be used to add additional 3.5" disks on top or below. With 8 mounting holes inside the 3.5" disk can be either mounted at the front (to be used with the VIMS PCB) or at the back to be then simply attached via a standard SATA cable to the master unit. Power for additional ‘slave units’ only containing a disk can be provided with such a cable or this.
There’s no need to design an expensive and sophisticated enclosure with vertical mounts of whatever. The horizontal design brilliantly works. This picture (featured on CNX) with the 3.5" and the 2.5" variant of such a design shows my desk in the office:
This concept simply works and for those people obsessed by annoying fans they can always screw a large 120mm fan in front of a stack of 3 VIMS.