Radxa ROCK 5 ITX: A Unique NAS Motherboard

Radxa, a Chinese manufacturer known for its Arm based devices, has recently introduced its latest product - the ROCK 5 ITX. This Mini-ITX form factor motherboard is designed specifically for NAS applications, making it a standout in the world of Arm based hardware.

The ROCK 5 ITX features a Rockchip RK3588 SoC with four Cortex-A76 cores running at up to 2.4 GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8 GHz. While not the most cutting-edge, this setup is more than capable of handling a SATA drive based NAS. The board includes four SATA 6 Gbps connectors powered by an ASMedia ASM1164 controller, as well as a PCIe 3.0 x2 M.2 slot for NVMe drives.

In addition to NAS-specific features, the ROCK 5 ITX offers a range of connectivity options, including two 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and a pair of USB 2.0 ports. It also includes a USB Type-C port with support for USB 3.0 data speeds and DP Alt Mode display output, along with HDMI ports capable of 8K60p output.

The RK3588 SoC also includes an Arm Mali G610MC4 GPU and a 6 TOPs NPU for machine learning acceleration. The ROCK 5 ITX is available in four configurations, ranging from 4 to 32 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, with prices starting at US$120 for the 8 GB SKU.