Wednesday, May 21st 2025
Synology Launches Six New Plus Series NAS Devices at Computex 2025
Although Synology already announced its first plus series NAS in its 2025 range a month ago with the DS925+ and its accompanying expansion unit, the company had no less than six new devices on display at Computex. We also talked at length with the company and got an explanation as to why the company decided to move to supporting its own brand drives only and it turns out the situation isn't quite what Synology's press release made it seem like, but more on that after we go over the new devices.
The new range starts with the DS225+ and the DS425+, where the DS225+ is the new base model of the plus series. Both models are built around an Intel Celeron J4125—a chip that launched at the end of 2019—which is paired with 2 GB of DDR4 which can be expanded to 6 GB in total. Both models come with one 2.5 Gbps and one 1 Gbps Ethernet port, two 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and two or four drive bays. The DS425+ also gets a pair of M.2 2280 NVMe SSD slots, but unless the CPU information provided is wrong, these will only be PCIe 2.0 and will most likely not sport more than one or two lanes.
Next up is the DS725+ which is built around an AMD Ryzen R1600 SoC which comes with 4 GB of ECC DDR4 memory as standard and it can be upgraded to 32 GB. Synology has equipped the DS725+ with a pair of M.2 2280 slots as well, but this time they're PCIe 3.0 at least and possibly even four lanes wide. There's also what Synology calls an expansion port here, which is a USB Type-C port which most likely supports 10 Gbps data transfers, but Synology doesn't mention the actual transfer speeds anywhere in the specs.
Next up we have the DS1525+ and DS1825+ which are five and eight bay versions of largely the same hardware. Both models are based on the same AMD Ryzen V1500B SoC as the DS925+, but ships with 8 GB of ECC DDR4 memory instead of 4 GB for the DS925+. Once again the PCIe interface is of the 3.0 variety and both models have a pair of M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs. The two Ethernet ports are both 2.5 Gbps and the DS1525+ has what Synology calls a network upgrade slot, whereas the DS1825+ has a PCIe 3.0 x4 PCIe expansion slot. Both models have a pair of USB Type-C expansion ports and the DS1525+ gets two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, whereas the DS1825+ gets three.
The last new model is the FS200T which is a niche product, once again based on the aging Celeron J4126, although paired with 4 GB of DDR4, upgradable to 8 GB. It has six 2.5 SATA drive bays and it's intended to be used with SATA SSDs. Around the back is one 2.5 Gbps and one 1 Gbps Ethernet port, as well as two USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 5 Gbps ports. Apart from the DS225+ and the FS200T, you should be able to find all the new products on Synology's website now.
As for the debacle with the plus models only being certified for use with Synology branded drives, it appears that the company communicated its plans very poorly and there's no excuse for the press release that was put out. Synology will allow other drives to be used with its plus range of NAS appliances, but it's under the condition that the likes of Seagate, Toshiba and WD validate their drives with the specific model in accordance with Synology's validation program. There are quite some gotchas with this, as for starters, it's unclear if these companies will agree to this and if they do, it might only be for a few limited drives, like their NAS specific products.
As it was explained to us, Synology got tired of trying to validate third party drives, as the hard drive makers change things without notifying Synology about changes to their drives and the company felt that they were spending too many resources on validating drives for the hard drive manufacturers. Not doing so is a big gamble from Synology's side, but clearly also a push to try and sell bundles to their customers. From our understanding, the feedback has been good from their business customers, but Synology is aware of the feedback from its consumer customers and the company is listening to feedback, but the question is if that will be enough to retain many of their consumer customers.
The new range starts with the DS225+ and the DS425+, where the DS225+ is the new base model of the plus series. Both models are built around an Intel Celeron J4125—a chip that launched at the end of 2019—which is paired with 2 GB of DDR4 which can be expanded to 6 GB in total. Both models come with one 2.5 Gbps and one 1 Gbps Ethernet port, two 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and two or four drive bays. The DS425+ also gets a pair of M.2 2280 NVMe SSD slots, but unless the CPU information provided is wrong, these will only be PCIe 2.0 and will most likely not sport more than one or two lanes.
As it was explained to us, Synology got tired of trying to validate third party drives, as the hard drive makers change things without notifying Synology about changes to their drives and the company felt that they were spending too many resources on validating drives for the hard drive manufacturers. Not doing so is a big gamble from Synology's side, but clearly also a push to try and sell bundles to their customers. From our understanding, the feedback has been good from their business customers, but Synology is aware of the feedback from its consumer customers and the company is listening to feedback, but the question is if that will be enough to retain many of their consumer customers.
22 Comments on Synology Launches Six New Plus Series NAS Devices at Computex 2025
So that's one sale lost to that policy.
I explained in some detail what's going on, but yes, for now, I guess it's true that only their own drives are supported.
We'll have to wait and see if the hard drive manufacturers agree to do the testing on behalf of Synology or not.
Sorry, but it's too late and too little.
Sorry but they lost my business and mind you, I have been using and buying Synology NASes for over 10 years.
I'm preparing to migrate away before my 918+ dies.
I'm not sure if the person I talked to has any real pull with management, but I do believe he will relay my comments based on the TPU readership feedback about this, to the management at the company.
I believe part of it is that they think they're too big to fail, as they claim they have 70% of the consumer and soho NAS market, so even if they lose "a few" customers, it's not too big of a deal for them. This doesn't feel like the right attitude to me, but it is what it is.
I'm only trying to relay the conversation I had today at the show and I honestly have no idea how this will play out long term, but it's clear that they've already lost some customers and it's going to be very hard for them to communicate their "full" intent at a later stage, when they've already posted the press release in question.
People are even telling him to stop wasting his time reporting about synology because nobody wants to hear about it.
Heck, one person said "If you post one more video about synology, I will not only unsubscribe from your channel but will block it".
Synology overestimated their customer base.
Then again, maybe they observed how Ngreedia is abusing their customers and the loyalty is unwaivered, so perhaps they think the same thing will happen to them.
Apparently most of their business customers had no issues with this change.
Further down the stack it's a complete deal breaker though.
My current NAS from them will be my last, I'm hoping that Ubiquiti's NAS's come on in bounds so I can consider them as a replacement.
Only that it was compatible with the device, for example, being NAS compatible, instead of being DVR compatible.
One time we switched from WD to Seagate because WD accused us of sending them counterfeit drives for RMA and refusing to return those drives neither providing the replacement.
But for our NAS and and servers? We didnt care.
So I am not sure why is synology so hanged up on this, besides the little extra money they get from their markup.
I've got a basic Syno NAS and want another but things are getting pricey. But then Chinesium alternatives ... Rock and hard place come to mind. I may wait further.
You still have Asustor and QNAP from Taiwan.
Problem with the NAS relying on known HDD and being in control is one wrong move from Syno and they could wipe out your array. I like the idea of a layer of separation non Syno HDDs gives. Different for corpo - I'm just tinkering. It's just all my photos and movies of the kids/family from birth onwards. I have backups, 3-2-1 and all that. I lost everything from my childhood - a witsec has more background than me so it made me super cautious.
www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/synology-warns-of-malware-infecting-nas-devices-with-ransomware/
But their solution sucks. It sucks balls, to be a tad vulgar. As I said before on the press release about this situation, Synology is perfectly within their rights to only offer special warranty services/support on their own branded drives that they've validated to a given performance/endurance standard, and this is very important for business bookkeepers and for less savvy people who want a shield to hide behind in case of catastrophe. They can scale back their validation process to only encompass their own drives and maybe the odd partnered drive. That's okay.
At no point should Synology be degrading the software experience of any of their DiskStation products because non-validated drives are installed in the system. That is hostile to the end user and harms the image of Synology outright. Synology was considered a gold standard in NAS management software; it was simple to use, feature-rich, and generally pleasant. Anything, and I mean anything, destructive towards that standard deserves loss of business.
You read my original take on this and I'm in no way in favour of what Synology has done, which is why I spent a significant amount of time talking to them at the show, trying to understand what's going on and why they did what they did. I'm not trying to defend them in any way, but I also wanted to share their point of view, be it right or wrong. As you say, this might make sense for some users, but it affects others that aren't ok with it and my opinion is that they went too far down their product SKUs with this.