Drobo 5N or Synology DS713+

[MrNomNoms]

I'm looking at getting the Synology DS713+ but I am tempted by getting a Drobo 5N because of what I've heard about the massive improvements over the old Drobo FS model that had a reputation for being pretty crappy in terms of performance. My main concern isn't necessarily expandability (although the Drobo wins in that regard) but the quality of the firmware, the software provided, the support when it comes to Mac (am I going to to be hamstrung with an ancient version of Netatalk), the performance etc.

I'd love to hear peoples experience from both sides as I'll be looking at attaching it up to my Airport Extreme and sharing it amongst three Mac's.

 

[jperro]

I bought a Drobo 5N plus 3 3TB drives in early June to replace a 4 bay Firewire Drobo. The 5N is a sweet product - its faster than its predecessor. I copied the iTunes library on my MacBook Air (late 2010) to the 5N. Copying 67Gb took a little under 14 minutes for a transfer rate of 84MB/sec. Plenty fast for me. Most of our household access it via WiFi. We all have separate shares set up on the 5N for Time Machine backups. My brother has the Drobo FS model that you asked about. He says that mine is almost 3x faster.

I am thinking about getting an SSD accelerator option for it and using as the hub for our video and audio too. If that works then I will sell the 4 drive Drobo and the Mac mini its connected to. Of course I'll need to buy another 3TB drive or two to get the unique Drobo instant capacity expansion.