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  • Earthmonger - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    This board was announced back in March. Why are they re-releasing another announcement about it?
    http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=1562....

    Still, I've been very much looking forward to this board, as it presents features that Zotac and others don't. 5 SATA ports. RAID on H55. USB 3.0. Possible OC capabilities. Etc. With this board I can run an SSD, two 1TB drives in RAID 0, my DVDrom drive, and still have that last eSATA for my external.
  • Earthmonger - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Right. Now I'm not impressed.

    After noticing any mention of RAID being absent from this new iteration of the announcement, I started digging, checking the site, downloading PDFs, etc. It would appear all RAID support has been dropped from this board.

    This board might as well be a brick. Such a waste. The only thing it has going for it now is USB3.0, and that isn't enough to even consider buying it. So disappointing.

    Well, what you got, Asus?
  • killerclick - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Yeah, because it doesn't have RAID it's a brick. Who the hell uses RAID anyway? People without girlfriends, that's who.
  • Zok - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Wow. Way to troll. RAID 5 is a very useful for a media center / backup NAS.
  • killerclick - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Yeah, because people who use miniITX systems routinely need reading speeds in excess of 150 MB/sec... you know, for video editing and stuff like that. :)
  • Zok - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    I wish someone would buy you a clue. RAID 5 is quite useful in upping capacity, while preserving redundancy. Some people do indeed require more than 2 TB (max single hard disk) of space for backed up games, movies (DVD/Blu-Ray), music, applications, photos, system backups, etc., hence why these boxes are commonly dual-purpose media-centers and NAS appliances. RAID 5 allows you to put 4 x 2TB disks in and still benefit from 6 TB of continuous space, which prevents waste, and single-disk redundancy.
  • killerclick - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Wow, another dateless wonder I see. As I said, I don't use RAID and it's not needed in miniITX systems which are meant for HTPCs and the like. Unless you're using such a system to store a lot of pirated movies, you don't even need a large hard drive.
  • Zok - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Yeah, no one uses a mATX system as a hybrid media center and NAS, right. And relying on a single hard drive to keep irreplaceable system backups, home movies and photos safe sounds real smart too. No one could possibly want redundancy and have high capacity needs.

    /sarcasm

    Because YOU don't understand the value in it, doesn't mean there isn't value in it.
  • killerclick - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Yeah, 2TB of irreplaceable data like photos and home movies... with that Torrent program used to download Linux distributions. Please... you're either a pirate with terabytes of illegal movies and software (which are hardly worthy of redundant storage) or you don't need more than 15-20 GB for your irreplaceable backups (just as safe to put them on an external drive and/or DVD and/or encrypted online). In any case it's stupid to use a miniITX and then bitch about how it doesn't have some obscure feature that only virgins know about.
  • Zok - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Because YOU don't understand the value in it, doesn't mean there isn't value in it.

    P.S. Keep up the dumb childish comments. This is Anandtech. If you think that RAID is an obscure feature that only "virgins" know about, you're on the wrong website.
  • Fujikoma - Friday, May 28, 2010 - link

    I have to agree with the troll (with the exception on the dateless/virgin stuff). The raid feature really isn't a deal-breaker. No one in my family needs that type of functionality in their computers. The reality is that I've just bought them 1-2 TB external drives and something like the WD media players to run movies, pictures and music. I keep everything backed up at my place.
    Something that size is mostly going to be used for a small system. I don't even bother with RAID because every piece of software I run fits on a 16Gig flashdrive in my fire file and I keep a couple back up HDD's in there also. It's not worth the extra juice for redundancy or speed.
    BTW... the conversation has been amusing to read through. Not too blue.
  • SunSamurai - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    killerclick, please continue. You're extracting a lot of good information from people with your pretending to be a complete douche.
  • FATCamaro - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    Killerclick, I'm loving your replies hahaha. Some feature that only virgins know about. I agree with you btw, RAID 5 on miniITX is pretty useless.
  • killerb255 - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    Wow...way to ad hominem half the comment section you two...
  • AstroGuardian - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    6 TB of continuous space? Dude do you even know what a partition is and how does it work? 6TB? Are you living in Star-trek movie?
  • tomoyo - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Ahem, hardware raid via intel isn't very fast anyways. An add-on raid card or software raid are still valid options here. Personally I highly prefer ZFS raid over any other option for this board.
  • AstroGuardian - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    And where would you plug it? It the board's a**?
  • Earthmonger - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Kids these days...

    This box is going to travel up and down Norway, between my brother's place, sister-in-law's (and her husband's) place, and my wife's mother's place (where my wife's brother also lives). We are all avid gamers, but we all share files amongst each other as well. This is a LAN box, not an HTPC; built for easy transport. But why the Hell wouldn't I want RAID? Are you honestly that feeble? Performance for one, redundancy for another.

    Crawl back into the closet with your inflatable sheep, kid.
  • Etern205 - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    The Intel m-itx board has RAID, but its layout made it looked sloppy.
    This one has a clean look to it, but no RAID. :\
  • piroroadkill - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    Who the hell uses cheap hardware raid anyway? I'd much, much prefer software raid, so that if my board dies, I'm not screwed.
  • AstroGuardian - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    You are not screwed in any ways if the board dies as long as you know how to handle raid member disks ;)
  • Mr Perfect - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    It's an H55 board, so it wouldn't be able to support Intel RAID anyway. You have to have an H57 chipset to get RAID. Well, that or install another chip on there, and I honestly don't see to much empty room.
  • Zok - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    "The back panel features four SATA 3Gb/s ports"

    Should be USB.
  • Zok - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Or not back panel.
  • IanCutress - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Apologies about that; the news has been corrected.

    All the best,
    Ian
  • taisingera - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    I was looking at this board and noticed it was just put up on Gigabyte website yesterday. I couldn't find out if you could use x1 cards in that x16 slot from the manual or other places. Would have considered it for a new build but it would have been $100 more total and I wasn't sure when it would be for sale and how much. So I went with, the microATX H55M-USB3 and a Mt Jade In-win case.
  • Bromptoners - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    You can use a x1 card on that x16 slot, since PCI-e is backward compatible to lower speed
  • Mr Perfect - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    True, but the problem is that some boards disable the on-board video if you plug something into the "graphics x16 slot".
  • AstroGuardian - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    Not necessarily true. It's not a rule. The board (especially new boards) will detect whether it's a graphics accelerator or not...
  • capeconsultant - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    for this most awesome board?

    Dave
  • Earthmonger - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    Lian Li PC-Q08b

    (I pre-ordered it like three weeks ago.)

    ;)
  • tomoyo - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link

    I concur. this is the exact case I want for my NAS system with mini-itx board.
  • capeconsultant - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    Thanks to both.
  • Aikouka - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    Ugh... that's definitely not suited for a HTPC (one of mini-ITX's nice uses) for quite a few reasons. Really disappointing to see such a case come out of Lian-Li too, but I haven't seen a great case from them since they dropped the PC-V1/2xxx series.
  • Mr Perfect - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    "The H55N-USB3 will support the latest LGA-1156.... ....Core i7 processors."

    That's exactly what I'm looking for! Most manufacturers target their m-ITX boards at the HTPC market, and only enable support for i3s and i5s.

    Now just get it in shops already. ;)
  • AstroGuardian - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    Now why would you want an i7 over i5 on this kind of board?
  • Mr Perfect - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - link

    My gaming rig is a full size ATX with only one slot used for the graphics. If I can get an i7 and a graphics card on a m-ITX, then ATX holds no advantages for me. I'm done with the ATX form factor.
  • 40sTheme - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    People are hating on this beautiful, well engineered, perfectly laid out board because it doesn't have RAID? Buy a dang external if you need backups... if you need RAID, buy a board for enthusiasts, because as much as you may deny it, in the consumer market, RAID is in the enthusiast section. Heck, I'm a computer enthusiast as well, but I have never seen myself using RAID for any real purpose.
  • MadMan007 - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    Are we ever going to see a really good VRM section on mITX boards? (Pending hands-on reviews of this board of course.) I don't buy the 'limited space' argument, there are mATX boards that clock very well and don't use rediculous bajillion phase VRM sections that get hyped by the marketing department. FWIR it's all about component cost not space. The mobo makers release $300++ boards but won't add $10-20 in components to make higher-end mITX boards? Put an H57 on it and give it a well engineered power section to make the 'premium' version please.

    I hope someone realizes this, even DFI has missed the mark, I've been pondering mITX using the IGP for my next build (I'll be done with gaming entirely by then) but am waiting until Sandy Bridge/Bulldozer anyway. I would love to have a nice solid CPU overclock to retain CPU power.
  • jed22281 - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - link

    I bought the premium P7H57D-V EVO and it didn't include USB power x3.
    Grrrr...
  • DigitalRazor - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - link

    This is the first mini ITX board that pretty much does it for me as a NAS/HTPC playback device. yes .. I need RAID but with that big 'ol 16x PCIe sticking out there .. a good 8x RAID 5 card ( expensive ... true and if I don't choose to use software raid ( icky-poo) ) I can serve as backup to my Audio Video and Software synthesis platform Mastering studio and about as many HD flat screens as I choose... and my girlfriend will be happy not to know about the redundancy of RAID-5 or RAID-6 --- but she does anyway cause she is a Nerd Like me ... Enjoy but if you cant .. there is something out there for you ..
  • Ninjahedge - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link

    OK, yelling for RAID on a mini is a bit rediculous.

    Why?

    You have only one computer in all of your house? You are using a mini for a LAN/Gamer/NAS and HTPC?

    I am not saying you need something for every application, but I would like to have a low power use system for my NAS, a TINY machine for my HTPC, and a small one for my main system that can still fit a decent vid card (And be able to fit it, the chip with its cooler fan and a power supply in a compact case).

    This looks like a good vid card might be difficult to fit next to the chip... I may be wrong.

    Anyway, back to RAID. As someone who upped his 5 disk 500G (each) raid to a 4 disk 1.5TB (each) array, I can see why RAID 5 is so desired. But to fit enough stuff on a NAS, you need at least 3 disks in RAID 5. Once you start getting to that many disks, "mini" is no longer a major concern.

    As for striping it in 0, what's the point? Load times? 1 2TB and an SSD should do the trick....

    As for backups while bringing your machine all around creation, you could just do it the old fashioned way and put it in two places (like I do, keeping them on the CF and putting them on the laptop, until I get home and transfer to the NAS).

    Question for all, suggestions on a full assembly on this sucker for a gaming machine? Would this be something that would give the Shuttle boxes a good run for the money?
  • lotuspad - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link

    I absolutely don't understand why all the fuss about the lack of RAID support with this mini-itx board.

    If you run RAID, don't you also need a case that's big enough to house at least two disk drives? How many ITX cases can you find that can house two HDDs (in addition to the usual ODD)???

    OK you may argument, you could put the system in a mATX or full size case. Then why in the world would you want to pay a premium for a mini-itx board when you can get more for less $$ by buying a mATX or full size board? The power savings between a mITX and mATX is not that much.

    To me, mITX is all about compact size. If that's not your primary objective when building a system then you're looking at the wrong product.

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