David...
I'm too cheap! The case comes with a bracket to mount two 2.5" drives, but just one would cost more than the rest of the parts combined. I ended up making a plexi bracket to hold the 2 SATA drives (used from stock)
Nothing futuristic about this. I had seen some posts that these mini boards didnt perform well. After looking at some specs I decided that they should work easily. This particular board is designed for home theater use. Any machine that can process HD video will have no problem with CNC code.
What is set on the soft switches and services appears to be possibly more important than the processor itself. Good bus speed, USB controller and RAM all play their parts, too.
With the extra load put on the system by the SB Link system, I need to pay attention above and beyond what a "normal" user would.
Here is what we SB Link Users have for a USB tree: