Hi,

I've got a macbook pro and use 2TB external disks as storage but it annoys me that I can't use S.M.A.R.T over USB with the macbook so I want to build a cheap hackintosh and stick the drives in it so I can use SMART.

I've built a hackintosh before on a big and beefy Blackops system with a Quad core so I've been through the process and am fairly good at resolving problems on my own, the issue I have now though is that this is just going to be a storage box so needs to be as cheap and low-spec as possible.

If anyone can help me by pointing out motherboards and cheap CPUs that will just work without hassle (and ideally have reasonable throughput on the SATA interface, I had a lot of slowness with the Blackops X48 board on OSX) it would be much appreciated. I can figure out the video card, memory etc I just want some recommendations for a good compatible board that works well. Don't care about sound or ethernet compatibility as I can just use USB devices.

Much thanks!