A while back I wrote a guide to backing up one’s important digital assets. In that post, I mentioned that I decided to go for Synology instead of the Drobo, specifically the Synology DiskStation DS916+.
Apart from the negative comments on the Drobo, I had also begun to understand the potential of NAS technology in a deeper way. I realized that I would want to do more things with my NAS box than the Drobo would allow. The Drobo is not really powerful enough or doesn’t have a good enough operating system for doing things like media encoding or handling a home surveillance system.
Some readers might also be familiar with the QNAP brand. They are also highly recommended, but most prosumer users tended to prefer Synology. I’ve also read comments saying that the Synology OS is better and more user-friendly. This might be more important to you depending on what you want to do with your NAS. For example Synology have very good functionality for creating a video surveillance system.
Synology also seems to release more frequent updates to their NAS products. Synology are generally regarded as the most popular NAS choice for Mac users.