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In Embedded Solutions

Great value for a low power mini-itx embedded CPU combo. Four SATA ports plus a 1x pcie slot for future SATA expansion. This CPU has hardware crc & AES instructions which puts very little encryption overhead on the processor. Processor speed is plenty for basic NAS functionality, though running btrfs or zfs may create a slight performance hit due to the extra processing overhead. So far stability has been rock solid with 24/7 operation. This board is a great alternative to an off the shelf NAS appliance for those looking to do more advanced things, or prefer a completely open solution.

It works for the special purpose I got it for. To be a media server. I had been wanting a server for quite a while, since I have a large network. Then I was gifted one from a small business owner who upgraded. I found that it was just a desktop being used as server. It made me think that I could use desktop Linux with a GUI. I like command line a little, but really want a GUI. The board I was given was quite old, so I saved it for another project and bought this new combo to upgrade the device. I installed Linux Mint and installed server apps and like the speed. I chose this board over the mini ITX choices because I wanted to be able to install expansion cards like a RAID controller and a USB 3 ports card. That has worked out great. Very good for the price, and the CPU is fast enough for my purposes.

Paired with an old Crucial 64 gb ssd and a 4 GB of memory I had laying around. Bought a $10 laptop psu/brick for dc power. It draws about 18 W when idle. Win7 boot times are speedy, I'd guess around 30 s - far faster than my i7 laptop that has a mech drive. Streaming videos via Silverlight/Flash works smoothly. I dropped in a PCI x1 card for accessing my network wirelessly (802.11n) - it works like a champ. I can stream compressed 1080p content easily, no hiccups.