VIA has just launched a new Artigo branded barebone, but this time it's not so much a tiny computer like the Artigo A1000, as the A2000 is not only bigger, but it's also not meant to be a normal PC. VIA calls the A2000 a barbone storage server, or what most of us call a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device.

Design-wise, the A2000 is a black cube, there really isn't much to it; but then again, this hardly matters, as you'll most likely stick it in a corner somewhere where no one will see it. It has a few ports which consist of one front-mounted and two rear-mounted USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port and strangely enough, a D-sub connector and two audio jacks. We've never seen a NAS with audio jacks before and even a D-sub connector is a rare addition.

The Artigo A2000 can also be upgraded with WiFi, although this connects via an internal USB header and unless you use the VIA solution, there will be some limitations, but nothing that should be any real issue unless you want to disable the wireless connection through software.

There's space for two 3.5in SATA drives inside the A2000 and they're cooled by a single 80mm fan. Sadly, they're not hot-swappable, as you have to remove the top of the chassis to get access to the hard drives. It's also possible to boot off a Compact Flash card, although this is optional, but there's a slot on the motherboard for it.


On the hardware side of things, the A2000 uses a VIA C7-D processor clocked at 1.5GHz and it has been combined with the VIA VX800 chipset. The standard configuration also includes 512MB of DDR2 memory in an SO-DIMM slot, although the system can be upgraded to 2GB by swapping out the memory module. The A2000 relies on a power brick and a DC-DC converter for power, so it should be very quiet when in use.

VIA also supplies monitoring software and a security suite with the A2000, although it's not clear if the software only works with Windows or if it's also compatible with Linux. The hardware supports both Windows and Linux, although only Ubuntu and Suse seems to be on VIA's list of supported distributions.

The Artigo A2000 retails for US$299 in the U.S. with 512MB of RAM, but no drives. Sadly, in the U.K. people are looking at paying a whopping £320.85 in VAT for the same configuration, which despite the stronger Dollar, is almost a $200 price premium. We didn't manage to find the A2000 on sale by any European reseller as yet, as neither of the two listed on VIA's site had the barebone in stock.

More details here including links of where you can buy the A2000.