I am familiar with both. Synology is way more intelligent and has a better OS in every regard. There are many "Apps" availale, ranging from mail servers to CRM software, all running in the unit itself.

But, disks are in a tray with screws, which is annoying. In latest versions, it offers the same flexibility as UltraRAID or whatever Drobo calls it.

But, there's no non-NAS Synology that comes with 5 disks or larger. You have to connect it via Ethernet. WHen you see eSATA ports on Synology units, those are to connect external drives to it, not to connect the Synology unit itself to a PC.

I hope this helps.


Back to my problem, basically if I want to connect a DAS to the NUC, I have to go USB3, which basically rules out Synology. Otherwise, I'd have considered Synology instead of Drobo.