As you pretty well know, the problem with servers is that they tend to consume a lot of power, make a lot of noise and take up a lot of extra space. And that's because servers do many complex things, are accessed by a big number of computers and therefore need a lot of raw processing power and storage space.

But what if you only wanted a server for one single thing? One single, easy to accomplish thing that does not require an incredible amount of processing power? Wouldn't a low-power processor be enough? Well, I didn't think so until Supermicro unveiled the 4W and 8W (yes, that's their consumption level) Atom Server Solutions (and yes, I wrote Atom).

There's no denying it, if you want low-power and quiet computers you get anything that has Atom in it. But a server? Well, Supermicro seems to think so! These servers are said to make ideal storage and network appliances or print and e-mail servers. The X7SLA-L supports up to four SATA ports with RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10, as well as seven USB 2.0 headers, a memory of 2 GB DDR2, Intel GMA 950 graphics and Gigabit Ethernet. The processor? Intel Atom 230 single-core.

The X7SLA-H adds a dual-core Atom 330 processor, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports and an extra internal serial port along with one Type A USB 2.0 onboard connector.

Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro, stated that “Bringing the low-power consumption advantages of Atom processors to the server appliance market empowers our customers with energy-saving, quiet solutions that provide flexible expansion and storage features previously unattainable with Atom solutions.”

I am still pretty skeptical regarding the viability of this product especially if used as a storage server but then again, anything is possible with a little ingenuity and the Intel Atom. Just look at how many netbooks there are. Price and availability have not been mentioned.


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