During the introduction, we mentioned Drobo’s claims of the 5N2 being “as difficult to understand as a traffic light.” – it turns out they’re correct, in every way possible. Yes, there are options for people who understand networking and want to set things up exactly as they want it, but for your Average Joe who wants to store some photographs and possibly back up a couple of games, it’s ideal.

The setup process required such a little amount of input that it’s barely worth mentioning. Likewise, the ease of use in general was unexpected, to say the least. Following the traffic light system on the front while allowing the 5N2 to do everything in the background will give you 99% of the functionality without any of the fuss.

The BeyondRAID feature impressed us hugely, the ability for two drives to fail, at the same time, yet still remain in a useable state is incredible. The read and write performance suffered, but that’s to be expected; we would feel as though we were doing it an injustice by marking it down for that.

Being able to add capacity after setting up the initial RAID array is brilliant - removing the smallest drive and replacing with a larger one without any of the associated hassle.

There's only really one downside to the Drobo 5N2. That is the noise it generates while being accessed. With 5 drives spinning inside the device the noise was noticeable in another room. This is more than likely down to the way the drives are held within the device. Perhaps implementing some kind of cages for the drives to be suspended within could dampen the vibrations and sound somewhat. If you plan to have the device nearby, this might be worth considering.



Require an easy to use NAS storage? The Drobo 5N2 will fit your bill perfectly. Dual disk redundancy that's as difficult to understand as a traffic light. A true blessing.



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