Chip manufacturer VIA has just introduced a new thin motherboard dedicated at the small business server applications, such as network-attached storage devices. Thin server systems are becoming more and more popular thanks to their low-energy consumption and high reliability.

The VIA NAS 7800 motherboard sports up to eight S-ATA II ports and two Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 ports. As expected, the board supports the company's low-voltage 1.5GHz VIA C7 processor, but it can optionally host a fanless VIA Eden stock keeping unit.

Moreover, the board integrates a proprietary MFX module that allows devices to support wake-up scheduling. This feature is extremely important for keeping the energy bill at a minimum, and lets IT managers to power servers down during the non-operation work hours. When the computers get online again, the integrated MFX module automatically wakes the NAS up.

"The VIA NAS 7800 is designed to address the needs of the modern digital work place, making it ideal for the new generation of thin server products for small and medium sized enterprise," said Daniel Wu, Vice President, VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "VIA's segment specific products are spearheading targeted platforms with industry-leading power efficiency, security and reliability."

Another interesting addition to the motherboard is the built-in TPM module for key generation and storage, that combines with the VIA PadLock Security Engine integrated directly onto the processor die. The combination offers ultra-fast, military-grade hardware encryption and decryption features that will keep the data safe.

The new motherboard from VIA comes in an unique 19cm x 14.3-centimeter form factor, which is the same size as a standard optical drive. The I/O ports are aligned in order to facilitate the integration process into a conventional design with a standard-sized chassis, as well as in an 1U server.