Camera Labs

Hi everyone, I'm in the market for a new NAS and my days of building that sort of thing myself are over!

I'd like a five-bay model with support for RAID 5, 6 and preferrably some kind of alternative which can use the full capacity of different-sized drives, allowing me to upgrade in the future. It needs to be accessible on a nework by PCs and Macs, along with supporting streaming to devices like the Squeezebox.

Two models spring immediately to mind:

Synology DiskStation DS1511+

Drobo FS

The simple comparison seems to be that the Drobo is easier to setup but the Synology delivers better performance.

Any thoughts?

I might try and get both in for a more technical comparison and review...

Gordon

Ive got a drobo and love it.

However Im not at all technologically inclined, and my main reasons for purchasing was the ease of use.

Performance is up to my (probably reasonably low) standards and it just works, so Im happy with it

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Nikon D5000 and D300 with 12-24mm, 35mm f1.8, 50mm f1.4, 60mm f2.8 Macro, 18-200mm, 17-55mm f2.8 (all Nikon)

Quick update: Synology have supplied a 1511+ NAS for me to test, so I'm now looking into disks to populate it and weighing up enterprise vs desktop drives.

Drobo were also keen for me to do a review, but not if it was a comparative one. I suspect they may be concerned about coming second in tests which only measure performance, but I would be looking at the bigger picture too, covering ease of use, speed and ease of expansion and rebuild, support for other services etc. From what I've heard, they should score well in these other respects, but as it stands, it looks like Drobo doesn't want to be a part of any article which compares them against anything else.

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and then there's QNAP. My six bay model is quiet, has been 100% reliable and does exactly what it says on the tin. QNAP also regularly bring out firmware updates, both for bug fixes and new features, though I haven't felt the need to install one for over a year now.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hey Gordon if Drobo had the performance of Synology\Qnap with beyond raid it would be awesome. Looking for a solution myself and would appreciate a video. Coffee would be on it's way

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http://ishootnikon.wordpress.com