Drobo 5N 5-Bay NAS Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

At the time of writing, the Drobo 5N can be found at NewEgg for $489.00, at Scan Computers for £423.49, or through Geizhals starting at €488.90. For a limited time and as an introduction of the unit to the UK market, it can also be had for a promotional price of just £412.90 through BT Shop and Amazon.

Overview

So, it’s time to dig into it and summarize my impressions of the Drobo 5N and we might as well start with the design and build quality. The Drobo 5N is a beautiful NAS thanks to its simplistic design. The rounded corners and otherwise glossy black design give the unit an overall great appearance. The glossy design does however have the downside that fingerprints easily show on the device. The front cover gives it the final touches while hiding the drives away from view. The magnetic seal on the front cover also makes it quick to remove when drives need to be replaced. Drobo also incorporated the LEDs great into the design, and there are quite a few of them from the multi-coloured LEDs for each drive bay to the bottom capacity meter. A generally well-designed unit that will fit great into offices as well as living rooms.

The Drobo features a completely tool-less design which is another bonus. Whether it’s for the data drives or the hot data caching drive, they can all be inserted or replaced without the need for any tools, drive trays or similar features. An awesome feature, but it does pretty much limit it to the use of 3.5-inch drives. Then again, that’s what most people will use in a device like this anyway, so it isn’t really a problem in most cases.

Connection wise, the Drobo is a bit on the light side compared to other systems in this category. We only get a single Gigabit Ethernet connection and that’s it. There are no extra USB ports either to allow for direct attachment of backup drives, external drives, or thumbs drives. This isn’t really a deal breaker, but I would have loved to see at least one USB 3.0 port for such a function. On the other hand, it keeps things simple and with fewer ports that need to be taken into consideration, fewer things can go wrong.

But enough about looks, it’s time to talk features. The BeyondRAID feature is probably the strongest selling point in this system and I really like it. Compared to traditional RAID setups, it allows you to mix and match drives with different specifications and capacity as much as you want without sacrificing unnecessary capacity or redundancy. You can configure it with either one or two drives redundancy in case of drive failure. It is also a quite fast setup that performed better in our benchmarks than I would have expected with the mixed drives that I used for this test.

The setup, configuration, and management isn’t done via a web interface like most other NAS’ devices, instead, you get a local app to install on a normal system, either Windows or Mac OS, that allows you to perform all these tasks. This does limit it a bit, but it might also make it easier for more novice users. Those are also the two systems that are supported for local connection through CIFS/Samba and Apple Filing Protocol. Linux users can also access it through their support for CIFS, but they don’t get the dashboard app. You can expand the basic functionality quite a bit through official Drobo apps as well as third-party apps and there are quite a few available to suit almost every need – from website setup over media streaming to automatic download tools.

Another really awesome feature that we shouldn’t forget in the Drobo 5N is the built-in mini-UPS that protects you from accidental power loss – and it works. It features a built-in battery that allows the system to shut down safely and without losing active data in the event of a power loss. It’s a great feature and it also works when you just unplug the power cord during usage – as I did a few times to simulate it.

Overall, the Drobo 5N would be a great solution for people that aren’t as tech-savvy but still want to benefit from all the features a centralized storage solution can provide while still offering more advanced features and app expansions more advanced users might be looking for. Kind of a plug-and-play NAS.

Pros:

• BeyondRAID with instant expansion and mixed drive utilization
• Single or Dual disk redundancy function
• Built-in mini-UPS
• Hot Data Caching option with an mSATA SSD
• Beautiful and smart design
• Tool-less installation

Cons:

• SMB/CIFS and AFP only
• No USB ports for external storage access.

“The Drobo 5N could be considered a plug-and-play NAS that comes with some great features such as drive mix-and-match and power-loss protection.”

Thank You, Drobo for providing us with this review sample.