Sunday, December 2nd 2012

Gigabyte Announces its First Consumer NAS

Following ASUS' venture into the consumer NAS segment as ASUStor, Gigabyte responded with its own. The company launched its Home NAS family with the GR-EZI04H, a 4-bay consumer NAS based on the Intel Atom platform. Pictured below, it uses a common desktop cube form-factor, with a main lockable door covering its four caddies.

Gigabyte used an interesting combination of hardware. It combined a current-generation Atom D2500 dual-core processor clocked at 1.80 GHz, with an old (yet effective) ICH10R southbridge, instead of the usual NM10 PCH. The ICH10R has been used on high-end Intel 4-series and 5-series platforms, and provides six SATA 3 Gb/s ports with RAID 0/5/10. The GR-EZI04H features two gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0/1.1 ports, and a VGA display output. Its OS, a choice between Windows Home Server 2011 and Embedded Linux, is stored on an mPCIe DOM. Gigabyte used a custom NAS management software that isn't extensively detailed, but features a standard feature-set. More details are awaited.
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7 Comments on Gigabyte Announces its First Consumer NAS

#1
stinger608
Dedicated TPU Cruncher & Folder
I guess the price point is the big question with this NAS.
Posted on Reply
#2
SaltyFish
That's nice, Gigabyte... now how about a new RAM disk drive for the rest of us? :)
Posted on Reply
#4
sc
$700... :(
Why can't anyone make a cheap modular NAS?
Posted on Reply
#5
Chris_Ramseyer
Phison Rep
That is the MSRP though.

They are not exactly cheap to make. The Atom proc and chipset are not cheap. Then you have to add the backplane, the R&D time and all of the extras. Even the drive sleds are costly.

There are 2-4 pay low price units available with Marvell ARM based procs, they are cheap but they also perform like crap too. I stopped reviewing the Marvell controlled systems because they couldn't even make it through my testing programs without failing.
Posted on Reply
#6
sc
True, but for $700+ you could build your own NAS (supporting more drives) which can double as media center/router/torrent machine.
Posted on Reply
#7
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
I think the $700 price includes a Windows Home Server 2011 license. The Linux variant should be cheaper.
Posted on Reply
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