Drobo 5N2 5-Bay Self-Managing NAS Review

Introduction Drobo only just released their newest NAS device and I already have the pleasure to have one of them in the office for a review and some benchmarking. The new Drobo 5N2 brings double the network connectivity and an improved processor when compared to the predecessor, the Drobo 5N. The latest generation 5 Bay NAS, the Drobo 5N2 delivers an unparalleled user experience for data sharing, secure backup, remote access, and disaster recovery solutions. The 5N2 is the fastest network-attached Drobo available to prosumers and it provides a performance boost of up to two times with its upgraded processor and port bonding option. There are a few things that set Drobo apart from the rest of the NAS devices on the market and the primary feature that does so is the patented BeyondRAID technology. While there are some similarities to ordinary RAID setups, there are more differences. For example, you need to use neither the same drive brand, drive type, nor drive size in order to use BeyondRAID. This allows for great flexibility in your setup as you can start out with the drives you have and slowly add larger drives as your storage needs grow. You still retain the extra security if a drive should fail. BeyondRAID can be set with one or two disk redundancy, allowing up to two drives to fail completely without you losing any of your valuable data. To further enhance your experience, every Drobo comes with Smart Volume technology. Smart Volumes are thinly provisioned volumes that automatically utilise capacity as needed from a common pool of storage. Additionally, as data is deleted, free capacity is returned to that common pool, immediately increasing the available capacity. Drobo went one step further with the 5N2 and added some of their enterprise-level product features. One of these is the DroboDR for disaster recovery backup. With DroboDR you can set up a pair of 5N2 NAS' to automatically make an offsite copy of your data. This feature is just as simple to set up and manage like the rest of the Drobo NAS features. The DroboDR will seamlessly replicate your data to another 5N2 which ensures that your data stays available even in the case of a disaster. This could be theft, fire, or other damages. And it isn't just the data that's kept safe this way, the remote system will store all information, including the user account information. That makes a quick recovery as painless as it possibly could be. Another feature that's often only found in enterprise-grade storage solutions is what's located on the bottom of the Drobo 5N2 NAS. There's a tiny cover that you can open and install an mSATA SSD module into. This module will then work as for hot data caching, significantly improving the transfers speeds possible. This will be a particularly useful feature when a lot of small to medium sized files are accessed by many people. The entire process is automated, so you don't need to worry about making changes and setting it up yourself. It leaves you all five drive bays available for your storage drives and the mSATA slot accepts any standard module. Even better, you don't need any tools what so ever to install it. Just power your Drobo down, open the cover, insert the drive, and close it again. Power it on and the firmware will enable it automatically. Should that still not be enough performance, then you got the option to load the NAS itself with SSDs instead of HDDs. Drobo leaves the choice up to you. The built-in security and backup features aren't just for your files, the device itself is protected too. The Drobo 5N2 has a built-in battery backup system that will protect all data in the memory or cache in the event of a power outage. With such a feature built-in, you won't need to invest in a standalone and extra UPS device in order to make sure that your files are safe and secure, during any event. The battery will make sure that the Drobo stays alive long enough for the data to be written to the disk and then it powers itself off. As soon as power is back, the battery will start to recharge itself. The built-in battery is also why you might consider the NAS heavy when you unpack it. As I mentioned in the introduction above, the Drobo 5N2 has dual Gigabit Ethernet ports. These can be bonded together to provide approximately twice the read/write performance you get via a single port. Or they can be used to provide a connection to two different subnets. Furthermore, they can be used in an “active/passive” mode so that if one port fails the other takes over. The three features you'll want from a multi-LAN device. No NAS is complete without additional apps to add extra functionality to it. The Drobo 5N2 naturally features a list of those too, including but not limited to ElephantDrive, Resilio Sync, and Plex. The DroboApps are designed to be as simple to install and configure as just the Drobo is in itself. The installation is performed from within Drobo Dashboard, and all applications are fully supported by Drobo and their technology partners. There's also the myDrobo platform which essentially is a dynamic DNS service for Drobo units. It provides end-to-end secure access to services on your Drobo from the public internet, through a user-chosen mydrobo.com address. It also enables services such as DroboAccess, Koken, and WordPress to be accessed remotely in a secure fashion. DroboPix is the mobile companion for Android and iOS and it allows secure and automatic uploads of mobile photos and videos to your Drobo unit. While the Drobo is easy to use and does most things without the need for any user interaction, there are times where it's needed. Especially if you should run into trouble. Drobo also offers the DroboCare support where trained professionals are available around the clock to help. In addition to extending technical phone support, DroboCare offers a wide array of benefits over the standard warranty. This includes migration assistance and expedited hardware and rescue kits. There is a trial membership included with every Drobo which then can be extended as you need it. Feature Highlights BeyondRAID that makes data protection and expandability simple Dual GbE LAN for high-speed connectivity and redundancy Improved Processor compared to 5N Secure remote connection through myDrobo platform DroboDR duplication for Disaster Recovery Expand functionality with DroboApps Package and Accessories The Drobo 5N2 comes in a simple why box, displaying the unit itself as well as the main feature highlights on the front. On the side, you'll find a comparison to other Drobo units such as the Direct Attached Storage models as well as the enterprise-class ones. This will make sure that you walk out of the store with the right unit for your needs. The rear side has the specifications in detail, and it also shows the rear side of the NAS unit. Inside the box, you'll find the Drobo 5N2 packed in a nice carry bag that you afterwards can use for your grocery shopping and show off your Drobo pride to everyone. The front cover on the NAS is protected with adhesive plastic to make sure that it arrives scratch-free in your home or office. Besides the NAS, there's a power supply AC/DC brick as well as connector cables for the region you purchased it in. In this case, there is a cable for use in the UK and one for DE/EU. You also get two RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet cables, allowing you to connect it with both available ports right away. I like it when everything you need to get the full effect of a device is available right out of the box, and it is here. Among the accessories are a bunch of notes and stickers too. There are replacement stickers for the inside of the front cover in various languages, warranty and safety notes, a normal sticker to place where ever you like, and a 90-day trial for the Data Recovery Service Plan. A Closer Look at the Drobo 5N2 The drives are inserted into the Drobo 5N2 without the need for tools or trays and the ejection is just as easy. Just press the button next to the drive and it will pop out. Removing the front cover plate is easy as it's just secured with magnets. On the inside is a sticker that explains the various drive LED indicators and what they mean. There's no need to remember anything. If you're in doubt, look here. This is also where you can place the other included stickers with other languages. At the bottom of the NAS, there's a list of LEDs that will indicate how full your storage pool is. The more blue lights are on, the less space you got left. The drive bays are both tray-less and tool-less, only requiring you to slide the drive in. The button on the left side allows you to eject the drives if one should fail or you just want to replace it with a different one. Next to each drive bay, there's a LED indicator for the drive's status. All the LEDs are multi-coloured and will display the status. The fillage LEDs will move around until it is fully booted after which they will show how full your NAS is. As you can see here, the drive LEDs are orange until it's finished booting too. If an error should occur, then they'll turn red. The bottom of the NAS has four rubber feet making sure that the NAS stays where you place it, a thing that the unit's weight also helps with. The rubber feet also help to prevent vibrations from travelling between the NAS and the surface. The bottom of the NAS is also where you'll find the mSATA slot for the hot data cache function. This drive slot is also completely tool-less, allowing for the easiest installation possible. Just open the cover, insert the drive, and close it again. The NAS is compatible with any normal mSATA SSD module, so which you pick is your choice. This one is a 480/512GB module I took from an external MyDigialSSD drive. Moving on to the rear side and we see one of the real feature highlights of this NAS in comparison to the predecessor, the dual Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 network ports. The ports can be linked for load balance or increased throughput as well as be used for different subnets. The power button and power connectors are also located on the rear of the NAS, just on the opposite side compared to the LAN ports. The included AC/DC adapter can deliver 12V at 10A, making it a 120W power supply. Specifications, Software, and Power Consumption Specifications The specifications are taken directly from the manufacturer's website and are as such subject to change in possible future revisions of the product. Dashboard The dashboard isn't a web interface as you're used to from other NAS devices, so you don't need to remember IP addresses for your device. Instead, it's an application that you install on the client system which then will find all directly and network connected Drobo devices. Power Consumption The chart shows the actual power consumption measured at the PSU connection and while loaded with a maximum amount of drives. The maximum power draw will occur during boot times. Setup: System Initialization The initialization and setup of a Drobo NAS is truly easy and it's one of its strongest selling points. The ease of use. To get started, you'll need the Drobo Dashboard which can be downloaded from the official website. All the instruction on how to get started are found in the included quick-start guide and it really doesn't require a lot. If you already have a version of Drobo Dashboard installed, but haven't used it in a while, it will start by updating itself. Once it's installed and started, or finished updating and restarted, the software will scan your network and ports for Drobo devices and let you get started with them. You can optionally choose to register it with a Drobo account, but it isn't required. Next, the NAS itself will check for firmware upgrades. It found one and the time it takes will somewhat depend on your internet's download speed. A couple of minutes later, it'll be ready for the next step. Now we should be ready to go, but we aren't fully. My installed drives have been used in other devices without being formatted after, so the Drobo blocks access to prevent accidental data loss in case you inserted the wrong drives. Would the drives have been clean and empty without any file system on them, then the NAS would already be building the BeyondRAID array. To remedy the lockout, you'll need to reset the unit via the Dashboard's Tools section. Just hit the Drobo Reset, after you made sure that you selected the correct NAS, and confirm that you're sure you want to do so. It will restart and start to initialise the drives for use with Drobo. Setup: Storage, Shares, & Users While the Drobo 5N2 is busy initializing the drive, we can continue to have a look around within the Dashboard. Not all function are available yet, but they will be shortly. The general overview of Drobo devices has two view modes, icons and a list. The devices can be sorted by health, name, or product, and the Dashboard will find both local DAS devices as well as NAS devices such as the one I'm testing today. The list view shows more details of every found device, including total capacity, space used, free space, serial number, and the login state. You can also quickly glance the overall health state by the light; if it is green like here, everything is in order. Selecting a device will allow you to view more details as well as configure it. The first pieces of information that you'll find are the system's own. This includes the health, firmware, uptime, and active connection. The representation of the NAS is also a live view that will indicate if there should be trouble with any of the drives. Speaking of drives, you can view all the installed drive's information too. Drive serial, health, capacity, and type is all shown here. The network information is very similar to the disk information, except it is for the two Gigabit Ethernet ports. It will show the connection status, IP and MAC address, as well as the gateway and DNS servers. Until the unit has finished the drive initialisation, you won't get access to much more. But don't worry, it really doesn't take long. Go and make a coffee and a cheese toast and it should be done when you get back. The capacity view has two modes too, just as the initial device view. You can watch it as a pie chart that will give you a quick view on the capacity. The usage view delivers a greater detail on how your storage pool is allocated and used. By default, there is one share already created when the system initializes and that is for public files that you don't mind anyone having access to. But I doubt that's enough for you, so we will add some more. To set up our users and shares, we need to enable users and for that, we need to log in. We haven't set a new admin password yet, so we'll do that first. The admin settings are also where we can enable or disable Drobo Apps globally. Now that we have set up our admin user and are fully logged into the NAS with all privileges, we can manage the rest. Selecting a share will allow you to access the settings. From here you can quickly define user's access to specific folders. You can deny access, set read access, and full read-write access. Adding a new shared folder is as easy as entering a name for it. You can optionally enable Time Machine support for the share and define the maximum size for the Time Machine backups. Creating users is just as easy as shares with the addition that you also have to provide a password. Both users and shares are conveniently placed within the same menu, allowing you to switch between the two as you need. Clicking the icon in front of a share will cycle the access rights. Mounting drives on your systems is as convenient as the rest. You don't need to dig through your network settings or neighbourhood in order to mount your shares as drives. The Drobo Dashboard can do it for you. I seriously love how easy it is to set this NAS up. You don't need any particular skills or knowledge as long as you're able to read and navigate in an application. Setup: Disaster Recovery, Tools, & Settings One of the cool features on the Drobo 5N2 is the disaster recovery function named DroboDR. While I can't test this in itself, it's one of those features that you often only find in enterprise-grade devices. In simple words, the DroboDR will duplicate all content and users from one Drobo 5N2 to another off-site and thereby have an active backup in case of emergency or disaster. The configuration is quite easy. You set one as a source and the other as a target. Naturally, you'll also need to provide an address, username, and password. Drobo Apps are additional features you can install besides the basic file sharing across Mac OS and Windows systems. At the time of writing, there was a total of 45 apps available and I'm sure that will increase with time. The apps are grouped by category which can be expanded and collapsed as you browse through it. We'll take a closer look at the apps on the next page. The Tools page doesn't have a lot of functions, but there are some great options. For example, you can shut the system down or restart it. This is also where we reset the device earlier on. Updates are also handled from this page. The settings menu has four sub-categories: General, Network, Admin, and Alerts. The general settings allow you to change between single and dual disk redundancy. The disk drive spindown sends you HDDs into power saving mode when they haven't been used for a while. You can also dim the LED lights if they are too bright for your setup. The network settings allow you to get the IP settings from a DHCP server or you can set them manually. Since the Drobo 5N2 has two Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, it also allows you to bond the two ports into one. We already saw the Admin settings previously and there isn't much more to tell about them. The last Drobo setting options are for alerts. This will allow the NAS to send you an email in case of critical situations. There are a few settings for the application itself, such as automatic updates, visual alerts on the screen, and the tray icon. Last but not least, the Help and Support page. This page contains all links to resources and customer support that you'll need in case of an error you can't handle yourself. Setup: Various Drobo Apps There are quite a few Drobo Apps available, and they both add functions and features. Here is a list of the available apps at the time of writing: myDrobo Supported Apps: myDrobo, DroboAccess, DroboPix, Koken Cloud and Remote Access: BitTorrent Sync, ElephantDrive, ownCloud, Pydio, Resilio Sync Entertainment Apps: Firefly, MiniDLNA, Plex Media Collection: Aria2, CouchPotato, Headphones, NZBGet, SABnzbd, SickBeard, Transmission Network Applications: Koken, Modoboa Mailserver, NFSv3, ProFTPd, WordPress System Applications: Apache, Java 8, Locale, Mono 4, MySQL, Node.js, Perl 5, Python 2, Python 3, Ruby 2 System Utilities: P7zip, Bash, Dropbear, Git SCM, htop, Midnight Commander, Nano, Par2, Screen, Subversion Installing one of the apps is very simple. Select it and press install. The process will take time depending on your internet speed as it will download the resources needed before installing them. Most apps are well known and I don't think there is a lot of reason to go into detail for them all. From compressing algorithms over programming languages to blog platforms and download clients. A little bit of everything. Most of the configuration will take place in your browser, but the Drobo Dashboard will take you to the appropriate address and page with a single click. Other more integrated functions such as the NFS will open a desktop window allowing you to configure the app. One of the things that I love to see is the mail server. It is an important feature for a lot of people and it's often left out when we're talking devices that are easy to install and setup. But Drobo thought of it all. Test Methodology & Setup Most of the hardware for NAS testing isn't an important factor when it comes to benchmarks, most of it comes down to the network infrastructure. I am using 10 GBASE equipment which means that I should max out any Gigabit Ethernet connections with ease and I got a second port to aggregate with, in case one isn't enough. The benchmarks will be performed through a 10GBASE managed switch which should give us some great benchmark results. As part of the testing, the NAS is connected through a D-Link DXS-1210-12TC managed 10GBase switch and then to our test bench to give the best real world setup test that we can and the NAS itself is packed with Western Digital's 6TB RED NAS drives. Intel's NASPT software does require us to drop the memory down to 2GB, as using any more would lead to data caching and skew the results. I will be testing the NAS box performance under each of the RAID options that it has available as well just a single drive. Full volume encryption and shared folder encryption will also be tested whenever possible, to check what impact it has on the performance. Other tests include file format comparisons and iSCSI connections over shared folders. Each of these tests runs five times after which the best of the five results in each category is selected for use in the charts. Test system: Supermicro C7Z97-OCE Intel Xeon E3-1230Lv3 Exceleram EP3001A 2GB PC3-10666 Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD Sapphire R7 240 2GB be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W Thermaltake Water 3.0 Performer C Lian Li PC-T60 Windows 10 Pro Disks in Product: WD RED NAS 6TB Seagate 3TB NAS HDD Toshiba 1TB DT01ACA100 Network Setup: D-Link DXS-1210-12TC Switch D-Link DXE-820T NIC We would like to thank our sponsors for supplying us with the components needed for the test system as well as drives. Software used: With a device of this sort having so many different applications, Intel's NASPT software covers all the bases and also gives us a set of results that we will be able to utilise and compare those against other similar systems. Intel NASPT (Network Attached Storage Performance Toolkit) performs its test by transferring varying sizes and quantities of data to and from the device based on twelve different scenarios. HD Video Playback HD Video playback is a read test, where a single 2GB file is read sequentially from the drive in 256 kb blocks. That simulates a 720p HD video streamed over the network. 2x HD Video Playback 2x HD Video Playback works with the same data set as the first HD Video test, however, this time the same content is streamed twice from the NAS box, thereby simulating two simultaneous streams to external media players. 4x HD Video Playback In the same way that the 2x Video Playback streams to the equivalent of two external media players at the same time, the test here doubles up on that to a four player simulation. HD Video Record The HD Video Record test is, as the name suggests, a write test to the NAS box. A single 2 GB file is written to the device in 256 kB blocks sequentially to the disk. HD Playback & Record The HD playback and record test performs the same single record and playback tests as before, but simultaneously. This test is a good way to show how the system performs with quick changes between reading and writing two large blocks of data across the network to the device. Content Creation The content creation test simulates access to the NAS from a video creation app. The test is made up of 98 files with 12 MB reads and 14 MB writes in varying block sizes. The activity is predominantly non-sequential with the majority of access time made up of writing to the drives. There are quiet periods of read/write activity interrupted with busy periods to present the drives with a bigger workload. Office Productivity The office productivity simulation is very similar to the content creation. A total 1.4GB data in 607 files are written to and read from the drive. The majority of write access is made up of 1 kb writes. File Copy To NAS This test quite simply puts a copy of a single large file from the test system onto the NAS. The 1.4 GB file is copied to the drive and written in 64 kb blocks. File Copy From NAS File Copy from NAS works in the same way as the previous test, just in the opposite direction. The single read has a 1.4 GB file size in 64 kb blocks. Directory Copy To NAS In the Directory Copy to NAS test, a directory tree representing that of a typical commercially available office suite is copied to the NAS to trace the bulk copy of a complex list. A total of 2833 files making up 247MB are moved, but the file sizes vary considerably with an average size of 41.4 kb. Due to the varying sizes of the files, only around 50% of the writes are sequential. Directory Copy From NAS In the same way that the File Copy from NAS traces the same file back across to the test system, the directory copy from NAS does the same but to the entire directory that it copied across previously. Photo Album When a photo album is viewed on-screen, the NAS only loads the images that you see on the screen from the drive. So, when you scroll through the album, new images have to be fetched and read all the time. The test album contains 169 photos with varying file sizes based on the dimensions, quality, and detail in the image. Reading the photos in an album puts an unusual read load upon the drive as the metadata is read, a thumbnail constructed, and finally the image viewed. Average Throughput This page shows the average throughput from each of the previous 12 tests in one and it can serve as an easy comparison between products. Cache Accelerator The easiest way to measure the cache accelerator's effect is by running a single test repeatedly. I picked the 'copy directory from NAS' test for this as it's far below the maximum throughput of a Gigabit connection, giving it space to grow. Final Thoughts: Pricing and Conclusion Pricing The brand new Drobo 5N2 is either available now, or it will be shortly. It all depends a bit on your location. At the time of writing, it can be found on Amazon UK for £576.99 and on Amazon US for $567.99. Overview I had high expectations when I started to test the Drobo 5N2. I have previously tested the Drobo 5N, and the 5N2 has the upgrades that were missing in that one, so I wasn't disappointed at all. Drobo allows anyone to set up and use a NAS without the need for a lot of knowledge. The NAS is self-managing for the most parts and where you need to make choices, everything is explained. That doesn't mean that you have to miss out on features and functionality. On the contrary. The Drobo 5N2 is packed with great features such as BeyondRAID, built-in backup battery, improved processor, and dual network connectivity. BeyondRAID is awesome as it goes beyond traditional RAID arrays. It allows you to mix and match drives as you please and still retain full system security in the event of up to two drive failures. The built-in battery pack is another great safety feature that makes sure that all data has been written to the drives in the event of a power failure. The dual network connectivity provides redundancy in case of network failure or you can use it to connect the NAS to two different subnets. The device is fully tool-less and there aren't even drive caddies. That makes it very easy to install drives as you simply need to slide them into the device. The mSATA port at the bottom can add more power to the system as it allows for caching of hot data. The installation of the mSATA module is also tool-less and it doesn't even require you to open up the system. Plenty of extra apps add to the functionality and they provide everything from blogging platforms and email servers over download clients and media streaming to coding languages and editors. Business users will love the Disaster Recovery feature that allows you to duplicated all the NAS' content and user setup to another device which then can jump in should the first fail. Another great feature for businesses, but also for SOHO users, is the optional DroboCare extended warranty and support. Pros: Powerful CPU for better performance Dual LAN Tool-less installation mSATA hot data cache feature Built-in battery backup Idiot-proof initialisation and setup Disaster Recovery Cons: No external storage connectors "The Drobo 5N2 allows home users and businesses alike to keep their data safe without the hassle of tedious setups. It simply works, it works effectively, and it offers impressive safety features." Thank you Drobo for providing us with this review sample.

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