Drobo DRDS5A31 5N2 5 Bay Desktop NAS Enclosure - Black

Bought the 5N2 because I thought my 5N had failed (it was actually the external PSU) but it's worth the upgrade. Twin ethernet ports add to the speed bump. There might be faster NAS devices available, but I like the Drobo because I can mix and match drives. Good range of Apps available too.

I've had the drive enclosure for a few months now and am very happy with it. The build quality is very good and setup was easy to do. The fact that you can easily slot new/extra drives in with the minimum of fuss. It has allowed me to utilse the many hard drives I had, whilst protecting my data. I have taken advantage of the twin ethernet connection making access very fast via my switch. TheDrobo software is OK once you get used to it, although it would be nice if it were a little more intuitive. The drobo is used for my business which includes a great deal of video footage and stills.

Rather poor app selection, mostly old versions too. Support decidedly flakey. However, if you are not expecting too much, it serves files and is working as a DLNA media server.Edited to add: now its fan is failing. Also, if you update one of the Drobo supplied apps with a newer version with security fixes direct from, for example Resilio, the Drobo keeps nagging you to back-level it. One more star removed.New edit: Latest Dashboard version shows very explicitly what is wrong with its app version checking. Screen shot added which shows "new" version is older than "old" version.And a newer edit: After one year, this Drobo has now gone into its notorious boot-loop problem. Because this device is a total black-box, there's no way to do any diagnostics on it at all. Also, because it uses a proprietary disk format, there's no way to recover any data. This is the most expensive paperweight I've ever bought. Absolute rubbish.

App choice isn't as good as on Synology

Moved from a Gen 2 4 Bay to this, it's like I've moved from the dark ages to the modern world! I'm using the accelerator bay as well and have 5 2TB NAS drives in, I'm seeing transfer rates of 100MB/s across the home network. It's running much quieter than the older device as well. All in all it shows that 7 years have brought a world of improvements! I wonder where these things will be in another 7 years!

First impressions were good. The unit comes well packaged with an all round professional look and feel (including cloth carry bag). The unit itself is sleek, with a clean finish and good weight to the metal casing. The front panel removes easily, (held only by magnets)I loaded my unit up with 5* Toshiba HDD. Initial setup was very easy, with little-to-no input needed by the user. The Drobo Raid protection is a nice feature, as there was no waiting for RAID to be configured like other manufacturers. Simply turn the unit on, and it's done.The user experience for management I found a bit lacking. I am familiar using QNAP/Synology which have feature rich web-based UI. The Drobo was simple and felt a bit more 'clunky' than other manufacturers. However, for home users who only need a NAS for general storage, this would be a good option based on the simplicity.Transfer speeds were mid-ground, with general files taking a few seconds, and films taking a couple of minutes to copy onto the device. Nothing I would consider as being excessively slow. Mapping a drive to a laptop was simple, and I didn't see any issues with this during the 2-3 week test.DroboAccess was a nice remote feature, having previously relied on other forms of remote app (such as OwnCloud).A big downside (for me), was the lack of drive caddies/trays in the Drobo. 3.5" HDD were fine out-of-the-box, but SSDs would have needed an additional 2.5" converter caddy purchase. IcyDock are recommended by Drobo, but I would have expected the 2.5" converter caddies to be provided by Drobo.Overall, I was relatively impressed with the 5N2. It was easy-to-use, and served well as a general purpose home-storage NAS. It handled multiple concurrent users (4-5) well, with only a single blip in connection during testing. The user interface app is straightforward, but was less appealing to me than other NAS manufacturers (This is just personal preference).

Old 5N device had worked reliably for 7 years but then died.This was a speedier 5N2 replacement. Updated the firmware and then removed the entire 5 disk pack (16Tb) from older unit to this new one. And the solid-state cache drive too.It just worked. Great.How stuff like this should be. "It just works".

I used the Drobo 5N2 NAS for Apple Time Machine backup, as well as storing music, video, photos and other files. Each time the Apple share has been mounted on the Drobo NAS for Apple Time Machine to do the backup, the NAS completely disappears from the network a few minutes later and becomes totally unrecoverable.Drobo replaced the first unit (first time cost me £50 to courier it to them in Holland, second time free). Both replacements have also failed. The NAS is not fit for purpose. Will move to a different NAS vendor, probably Synology.