VIA Creates Compact Thin Server, Pushes Linux

Published: April 15, 2008

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Finally, X86 clone chip maker and Mini-ITX system board maker VIA Technologies has introduced a small form factor motherboard based on its low-power C7 processor that has a large number of on-board SATA ports and two Gigabit Ethernet ports. With this move, the new NAS 7800 board is the first server-specific system board to come from VIA, and power conscious system builders (like those of us at IT Jungle) will soon have a machine that they can use to make very compact and energy efficient servers.

And because VIA is trying to get a handle on the embedded systems market with its Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX, and Pico-ITX system board designs, the company is also embracing Linux and has created an effort to get the open source community to create drivers specifically for its system boards. Linux driver support on Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX, and Pico-ITX often lag far behind support for Microsoft's desktop and server Windows variants. For instance, the BIOS RAID 1 functionality in the latest Mini-ITX systems is not supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, but is supported on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Small Business Server R2. I know this because we use Mini-ITX systems as our Web servers and content management system servers here at IT Jungle--you can see one of our machines right here on our Hardware Foundry project, in fact. Better driver support will make the VIA ecosystem broader and I happen to think there are plenty of uses where a single-core, eight-disk server will be enthusiastically deployed, provided drivers for various peripherals both on the system boards and in peripherals cards can be kept in lockstep with Windows and Linux releases.

While VIA has created a number of embedded processor boards with reasonable memory scalability (up to 4 GB of DDR2 memory) and up to four on-board SATA ports, the NAS 7800 board is arguably the first true thin server that VIA has introduced. The system board is based on a 14.3 cm by 19 cm form factor that has slightly less area than a Mini-ITX board and is exactly the same size and shape as a CD or DVD drive in a machine, which means you can create a disk array that is quite small and shaped more or less like a stack of disks. The NAS 7800 board is based on the 1.5 GHz single-core C7 processor and up to 1 GB of DDR2 main memory running at 400 MHz or 533 MHz (667 MHz DIMMs will scale back to 533 MHz), which is enough oomph and memory to function as a file server that doesn't have too many people hammering on it. The board also has a single UltraDMA connector, a Compact Flash slot, and a single 32-bit PCI slot. The board comes in two flavors. The 7800-15T has four 3 Gb/sec SATA ports and a single Gigabit Ethernet port, while the 7800-15LST has two Gigabit Ethernet ports and eight SATA ports. The extra Ethernet port and SATA ports seem to be added to the system through a daughter card. There is also an optional 802.11g wireless LAN module for the machine, too. Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XPe, and Linux are on the official support list for the board, but if past history is any guide, the Red Hat and SUSE Linux will run on the NAS 7800 board as well and so will Windows Server 2003 editions. (Again, I base this on personal experience, not on certifications from VIA.)

The NAS 7800 Thin Server and Storage Array Board

The NAS 7800 thin server system board is sampling to VIA's partners now; I am also trying to get my hands on a few of these units to put them into production as file servers. Pricing has not yet been announced, but it is hard to imagine that they will cost much more than a Mini-ITX board of similar capability. The two-socket VIA 310-DP system board announced a few years ago (which we also use here at IT Jungle in production in addition to the EN 15000 boards) was pretty pricey at around $400 street price compared to $180 to $250 or so for more standard Mini-ITX boards of the time. Hopefully VIA will keep the NAS 7800 board to around $250 to $300, with an extra fee for the daughter card that adds the Gigabit Ethernet port and the extra four SATA ports. It would be nice if the whole thing would cost under $500 with a stick of memory, in fact.

Last week at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in Austin, Texas, VIA also announced that it will be opening up its Linux-related support Web site and providing all the technical documents, source code, and other information related to its mainboards based on the CN700, CX700/M, CN896, and VX800 chipsets; in the coming months, it will work with the Linux community to improve support for 2D and 3D graphics, which are embedded on the boards, over time it will time its own software updates to coincide with the quarterly updates done in the Linux kernel project. The Linux site at VIA will also issue beta code and put in a bug reporting and tracking system that can be used by contributors to VIA's open source driver initiative. Hopefully the open source driver support will go well beyond integrated video drivers.

In a related announced, Logic Supply, one of the big resellers of Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX, and Pico-ITX parts and finished systems, said last week that it would begin pre-installing Ubuntu Linux on a select Mini-ITX and Pico-ITX systems that it builds. Logic Supply is supporting Ubuntu on some VIA machines as well as boards made by MSI, Jetway, and IEI. You can see the list of supported boards and their quirks in this FAQ put together by the company. You can always, of course, hack Ubuntu onto your ITX-style machines and support them yourself.

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