The Synology DS918+ Versus The Drobo 5N2 - Brand Vs Brand NAS Comparison

Brand Versus Brand, Choosing between Synology and Drobo for your NAS needs https://www.span.com/product/Synology-DiskStation-NAS-DS918+-4-Bay-4GB-RAM-~61979

General Performance

The DS918+ unlike the DRDS5A31 is made by Synology. People often choose Synology because of user friendly interface as well as being suited for Mac and Windows based environments. It is relatively easy to set up and use, and those who are new to Network Attached Storage are advised to go for the Synology. Unlike the DRDS5A31 this box has the Intel Celeron J3455 Quad Core 1.5 GHz (up to 2.3 GHz) processor. Another key difference between the DRDS5A31 is RAM. DS918+ arrives with 4GB RAM. The DS918+ 4GB RAM compared with DRDS5A31 2GB is clearly weaker.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This must be the motto of the designers at Drobo. Because the chassis design on the Drobo 5N2 has not changed for almost 10 years across the entire Drobo Range. Not that it is a bad thing, it is a sleek and modern chassis. Compact, but not to the point where heat is an issue, thanks to the large fully controlled fan on the rear and ventilation throughout. Additionally the lack of trays in favour of a removable front plate (no screw driver required) and slot loaded HDD Bays, makes this a very self contained and hassle free device Only available in one colour, it may stick out like a sore thumb in a white and silver mac environment. Additionally, although you can dim the LED lights, you cannot fully disable them and given the device is designed to be very discreet, this is an odd facility not to have. Thought I imagine it will be introduced in a further firmware updated, so check first!

About Connections

There are two LAN ports on this box, making it a good home or small business NAS as you can utilise Link Aggregation and Failover support. Two USB3 ports on this Synology is offering you up to 5Gb/s transfer speeds of external devices. It is fast enough to get your files through fairly quickly with this speed and make backing up with an external drive or Apple Time Machine a quick and easy process. There is one eSATA port on DS918+ giving you up to 6Gb/s transfer speeds. Sometimes when your business grows, you might consider getting a box with expansion capabilities. With this box you have all opportunities to do so. You might want to contact one of our tech guys to find out more.

Like the previous unit, the Drobo 5N, this new unit supports a number of popular Mac and Windows based applications. In some cases providing a valuable network element to local based software. Likewise for those looking for a sold background device to perform all your network and internet sharing based tasks in a way that requires the least amount of live input from yourself, will find the Drobo 5N2 a very competent device.

About Usage

With 4 bay unit you are having additional advantages. You can choose from number of RAID solutions to set up. There could be RAID that saves your data even if one of the drives fail so you can still recover your data. This would be slightly more safe option to keep your data. Besides you can still access your documents or media files over your private network or even internet.

an improved CPU over the previous Drobo NAS, as well as twice the memory at 2GB of DDR3 RAM, the Drobo performs it's tasks well. Liekwise the Drobo Dashboard software has seen a number of improvements sine I last played with it on the Drobo 5N and has a number of new apps including surveillance applications and plex. Definitely an improvement over it's older brother and worthy of a look. Lastly this unit alongside the mSATA SSD bay in the base (where other NAS devices force you to lose a HDD bay for SSD Cache upgrades), the unit also arrives with dual LAN ports on the rear. This opens up the possibility of using Link Aggregation (port trunking) and offers upto double the previous read/write, upload/download speeds of the older Drobo 5N

Price And Warranty

This box comes with 3 year warranty for your peace of mind and long term hardware security. This is the most expensive box with the price tag £454.00.

Definitely a step up from the old Drobo NAS. The unit has a bigger spec across CPU and memory, as well as improved network access speeds. These investments in innovation alongside big jumps in application support and the Drobo 5N2 operating system itself, means that if you are in a head to head choice between this device and it;s predecessor - You should buy the Drobo 5N2.

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