News This NAS motherboard has more 2.5G Ethernet ports than USB ports — Topton N9 comes with eight 2.5G Ethernet ports

[Zaranthos]

Something like this is probably faster and from a company in north America. Dual port cards are much cheaper as well and more common. I would think a switch with power over Ethernet would be a better option for most things, at least for something like HD cameras.

Amazon.com

 

[LuxZg]

This article is a joke. You need like 10 seconds to conclude that this is a router/firewall motherboard, not a NAS. Who would make a NAS with one M.2 drive and single SATA drive. Sure, with large SATA drive for files and NAS for OS, apps & cache it can be NAS as well (hell, I made one "NAS" with Nextcloud with that drive configuration and works fine). It can be a lot of things. But first and foremost a router & firewall box.

Now for the the product itself, it's an interesting MBO, though there are plenty like it if you look for that kind of stuff. Good thing is that it can be be nice all-in-one server for home use. I could use it as many things at once, it has plenty power, and plenty NICs. Nextcloud, media streamer (incl. transcoding), actually could even be media box with TV on that HDMI, VPN, firewall, switch/router, DNS filtering, download repo, and so on. Just needs good 1-2 TB NVMe for basically everything and Nextcloud cache (thumbnails and indexes), while file storage (photos, video) can be on a single large SATA. Still you'll want one equally large USB for backups.

Nice thing all considered. For 1000-1200$/€ you'd have everything unless you need way way more storage than those 2 drives can provide. For me 10 TB storage is still plenty for whole family so box built around this or similar MBO would be fine.

Btw if you don't need too much CPU power, there's plenty 250-300$ Intel i3 and similar boxes and MBOs to shop for.

 

[Foeke]

To me, this seems like it was probably designed under contract, in order to suit a particular client's requirements. What they're doing now is just liquidating leftover inventory. That explains why they're using a long-ago discontinued Intel CPU, at least.

That would make sense. But after working with Chinese companies, I am not sure anymore. It could as well be that they bought the parts cheap. And just went with it. Pay a western tech website to post a news article about it and see what happens. Who would want 8 2,5Gbit networkports with not nearly enough bandwith to sustain them, one sata port and an upgraded videocard.

 

[newtechldtech]

Yes, I'm aware of both M.2 SATA slots and M.2 RAID controllers. Hadn't considered either possibility. Fair points.

Still, I maintain this is a weird setup to use for a NAS. Furthermore, if that's what it was designed for, having to add in a M.2-based RAID controller would seem like an unnecessary cost when they could've just ditched the M.2 slot and put the controller & ports right on the board.

I think to keep costs low .. I searched more and found that M2 SAS controllers exist !!! that means 8 total drives with 2 ports M2 SAS controller.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804231379766.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa

 

[newtechldtech]

Who would want 8 2,5Gbit networkports with not nearly enough bandwith to sustain them, one sata port and an upgraded videocard.

you dont need to saturate the bandwidth, the extra ports is to connect more devices , not that they should work all at the same time.

This motherboard backbone is DMI3.0 thats equals 4GB/s , it is enough ... the Storage can use the M2 slot using 8 sata ports M2 controllers (mini SAS).

 

[bit_user]

This motherboard backbone is DMI3.0

No, it's a SoC. There might be DMI 3.0 running on-package, but what ark.intel.com says is exposed for off-chip use is only PCIe 3.0 x8. I don't even see how they managed to connect 8 ethernet controllers, unless there's a PCIe switch.

 

[thestryker]

No, it's a SoC. There might be DMI 3.0 running on-package, but what ark.intel.com says is exposed for off-chip use is only PCIe 3.0 x8. I don't even see how they managed to connect 8 ethernet controllers, unless there's a PCIe switch.

It actually doesn't look like a SoC as we would consider it today which confuses me because I absolutely thought it was.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12572/the-intel-hades-canyon-nuc8i7hvk-review-kaby-lakeg-benchmarked

I'm betting what looks like a chipset on the board is indeed a HM175 PCH. That being said I wouldn't be surprised if there were some PCIe 2.0 switches in use somewhere.

 

[TJ Hooker]

and it is a cheap motherboard for a router or a switch with 8x2.5Gbp ports.

Yeah, just comparing to an 8 port, 2.5g, managed switch, I think this board (with minimal case, PSU, and RAM), is at least somewhat competitive. Never mind the other value you can get from using it as a fairly capable computer (relative to typical low power ARM miniPCs). It's definitely niche, but I think it could be a good option for a very select user base.

 

[thestryker]

Yeah, just comparing to a 8 port, 2.5g, managed switch, I think this board (with minimal case, PSU, and RAM), is at least somewhat competitive. Never mind the other value you can get from using it as a fairly capable (relative to typical low power ARM miniPCs). It's definitely niche, but I think it could be a good option for a very select user base.

It might seem that way, but this is actually extremely inefficient compared to the other devices you can get. The only thing it really brings to the tables is the integrated graphics with dedicated HBM, but I don't really see the advantage here. I suppose being able to mount in it your own case could be an advantage, but I can't think of a reason it would be.

I have a completely passive N305 box with 6x 2.5gb ports which is powered off a standard barrel connector power brick that cost around the same as this board (I had to provide DRAM/storage). There are also other boxes available with 8x 2.5gb ports or a 4x 2.5gb/2x 10gb split that are available with ADL based SoCs and now ADL-N based ones with the same split.

 

[bit_user]

It actually doesn't look like a SoC as we would consider it today which confuses me because I absolutely thought it was.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12572/the-intel-hades-canyon-nuc8i7hvk-review-kaby-lakeg-benchmarked

Whatever the block diagram shows, the ark.intel.com specs say it has x8 PCIe 3.0 lanes that can be bifurcated to dual x4. No mention is made of DMI, either.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...o-4-20-ghz/specifications.html?wapkw=i7-8809G
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FWIW, this unit supposedly has the i7-8705G, although the main difference seems to be only frequency.

 

[thestryker]

Whatever the block diagram shows, the ark.intel.com specs say it has x8 PCIe 3.0 lanes that can be bifurcated to dual x4. No mention is made of DMI, either.

​

https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...o-4-20-ghz/specifications.html?wapkw=i7-8809G​

​

FWIW, this unit supposedly has the i7-8705G, although the main difference seems to be only frequency.

I'm very aware of what it says on Ark, but it would hardly be the first time there's incomplete information. If you look at the other mobile chips they don't mention DMI either.

edit: checked and not even the desktop ones do

Kaby Lake H has 20 PCIe 3.0 lanes with 4 allocated for DMI.

 

[newtechldtech]

No, it's a SoC. There might be DMI 3.0 running on-package, but what ark.intel.com says is exposed for off-chip use is only PCIe 3.0 x8. I don't even see how they managed to connect 8 ethernet controllers, unless there's a PCIe switch.

I7 8705G uses mobile chipset number HM175 . the i7 8705G is not a complete SOC .

https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...obile-intel-hm175-chipset/specifications.html

and it is connected to the CPU using DMI3.0 ..