Giada Relaunches N70E-DR mITX NAS Motherboard

Giada created the probably best mITX motherboard quite a while ago with the M70E-DR and now they’ve relaunched it in a third revision due to popular demand. The N70E-DR V3 mITX NAS motherboard bring 6 SATA ports, 1 mSATA, Dual Intel LAN, and HD graphics with HDMI out; and it does that with a TDP of just 17W. That makes this board perfect for home storage use, such as DIY NAS projects as well as video surveillance servers.

The CPU used in this third revision of the N70E-DR is an Intel Celeron 1037U dual-core with 1.8GHz and the aforementioned 17W TDP. That includes onboard Intel HD Graphics with both D-Sub VGA and HDMI out. No problem to turn a system with this board into a hybrid system with direct use as well. The board comes with six SATA ports, but only two of these are SATA3 due to the Intel HM77 Express chipset limitations. That should still be plenty for mechanical storage drives and that is the intended use. The added m-SATA socket allows you to add another drive or possible a wireless card of some sort if that is what you need.

The PCI-E x16 slot only runs at x4 speed, which is a little downside yet no deal breaker in my opinion. The dual Gigabit Ethernet ports are controlled by Intel’s 82574 controller and should provide a great connectivity. Other connections include a PS/2 port, two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports, a COM port, and two Audio jacks. The motherboard supports up to 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM with a speed up to 1600 MHz in the single SO-DIMM socket.

Feature Highlights

• 6x SATA ports (2x SATA III, 4x SATA II)
• Native SATA RAID support: 0/1/5/10
• 2x Intel Gigabit Ethernet Ports
• Low power consumption – 17W TDP
• Compact Mini-ITX form factor 6.7″x 6.7
• Intel Celeron 1037U CPU with advanced Intel 22nm technology

So if you are planning to build a DIY NAS in the near future, make sure to take a closer look at the Giada N70E-DR V3 motherboard.