Conclusion
...Drobo 5N2 offers huge storage capacity, dual Gigabit Ethernet, capable performance and a built-in battery in a simple-to-use package.Drobo has upgraded its five-bay NAS by including a quad-core processor tasked with closing the performance gap that exists between specialised BeyondRAID and more traditional RAID configurations.
The benchmarks reveal that while a performance discrepancy remains, it has been minimised to the extent that BeyondRAID's positives outweigh the potential trade-offs. Having the ability to mix-and-match disk drives of varying capacities is a genuine perk, particularly for users who have amassed a collection of hard disks over the years, and the Drobo solution requires little networking experience.
Similarly-priced units from rival manufacturers offer a wider selection of features and fine-grained configuration options, yet if you'd rather not sweat over which RAID type or file system to use, the Drobo 5N2 offers huge storage capacity, dual Gigabit Ethernet, capable performance and a built-in battery in a simple-to-use package. We reckon Drobo has missed a trick by not adding USB connectivity for simple expansion or external backup, yet we come away feeling as though the 5N2 has a place in the market by offering something different to the norm.
Bottom line: want to massively expand your home or small office storage with minimal fuss? Drobo 5N2 takes away a lot of the guesswork and, if you can read a traffic light, you ought to have no problem managing this NAS.
Requires little networking experience
Easy-to-use software
Built-in battery
Not as feature rich as the competition
Drobo 5N2
HEXUS.where2buy
The Drobo 5N2 NAS is available to purchase from Ebuyer and Amazon UK.
HEXUS.right2reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
Related Reading
