ZimaBoard: Single-board server for creators raises over US$100,000 in crowdfunding support

The ZimaBoard is now orderable on Kickstarter, where it has already grossed nearly US$125,000 in crowdfunding. The company behind the single-board computer, IceWhale Technology, claims that it has designed the ZimaBoard for 'makers and geeks' with the expandability of an x86 SBC and the power of a microserver. Specifically, IceWhale Technology has created two models, which it calls the ZimaBoard 236 and ZimaBoard 832. Both devices measure 120 x 74.5 x 25 mm, but they feature some different internal hardware.

In terms of similarities, the ZimaBoard 236 and ZimaBoard 832 both have two SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports for connecting an HDD/SSD, dual USB 3.0 Type-A connections and a single PCIe 2.0 4x connection. Additionally, they have two Gigabit Ethernet ports, along with one Mini-DisplayPort 1.2 port that can output in up to 4K at 60 Hz.

However, IceWhale Technology has equipped the boards with different CPUs, RAM and onboard storage. On the one hand, the ZimaBoard 236, has an Intel Celeron N3350 processor paired with 2 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 16 GB of eMMC flash storage. On the other hand, the ZimaBoard 832 features the more powerful Celeron N3450, 8 GB of RAM and 32 GB of eMMC flash storage.

According to IceWhale Technology, both boards support Windows, Android, OpenWrt and pfSense. Apparently, these supported OSes should make the ZimaBoard suitable for use as a router, a media server, a VPN or for streaming as a media centre. You can read the full uses for the ZimaBoard on the Kickstarter page.

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