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VIA announces thin server motherboard for small business storage

Press release, April 1; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES Asia 0

VIA Technologies has announced the NAS 7800 motherboard designed to meet the needs of thin server and NAS segment system builders.

Thin servers such as network attached storage are proving increasingly popular with small and medium sized enterprises looking for secure, energy-efficient data storage without investing in large, expensive and power-hungry corporate solutions, according to VIA. Boasting up to eight SATA 3Gb/s ports and two Gigabit ports, the VIA NAS 7800 combines storage flexibility and a power-efficient, secure platform to meet these needs.

The motherboard is powered by a low-heat, energy-efficient 1.5GHz VIA C7 processor, with an optional fanless VIA Eden SKU, the NAS 7800 also features a proprietary MFX module for wake-up scheduling, allowing IT managers to power servers down at night or weekends for savings in electricity usage.

The VIA NAS 7800 uses a unique 190mm×143mm form factor, the same size as a standard optical disk drive, with I/O aligned to allow easy integration into drive-sized chassis or even in multiple configurations within a 1U server, offering an innovative approach to NAS systems for small and medium sized businesses, highlighted the company.

System security is enabled through an onboard TPM module for key generation and storage and the VIA PadLock Security Engine integrated directly onto the processor die, which when enabled provides fast, military grade hardware encryption and decryption of data.

VIA NAS7800 server motherboard specifications

Item

Detail

Processor

VIA C7 1.5GHz NanoBGA2 processor

Chipset

VIA CN700 northbridge
VIA VT8251 southbridge

System Memory

One DDR2 400/533/667 DIMM socket, supports up to 1GB

VGA

Integrated VIA UniChrome Pro graphics with 2D/3D and MPEG-2 video accelerators

Onboard IDE

One UltraDMA 133/100/66 Connector (2.0mm pitch/ 44-pins)

Expansion Slots

One CompactFlash type-I slot (Master/Slave selectable)
One 32-Bit Mini PCI slot (for NAS 7800-15LST)

Onboard LAN

One VIA VT6130 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Controller
One VIA VT6122 PCI Gigabit Ethernet Controller (for NAS 7800-15LST)

Onboard TPM

Infineon SLB9635TT 1.2 (Trusted Platform Module)

Source: Company, compiled by Digitimes, April 2008

VIA NAS7800 server motherboard

VIA NAS7800 server motherboard
Photo: Company