Synology Forcing Owners of its Plus Series NAS Appliances to Use Own Brand Hard Drives

[Dr_b_]

Synology Forcing Potential Owners of its Plus Series NAS Appliances to buy QNAP instead​

 

[FrostWolf]

Given that Synology doesn't have enterprise support (it's not 24x7 or at least hasn't been for as long as I can remember), and they're behind on hardware compared to others, and have killed features of the best thing going for them (their OS), I just don't see this as a smart move. I could see them arranging partnerships with drive OEMs to better certify models of drives (they've been lagging in that too), but not this. I see this hurting the SMB market they've traditionally competed in, and coming back around to hurt them.

But my DS-1520+ does what it needs to, they're not making this retroactive to already-existing models, and when it's either out of support or no longer meets it, uGreen is now making some pretty impressive equipment, priced competitively. Its software doesn't quite have the polish of Synology, but its hardware is nice and I think the software will get there. I'll be in that category of Synology enthusiasts that walked away.

 

[GenericUsername2001]

Shit like this should be illegal.

Agreed; there should be a general law stating that device manufacturers are not allowed to artificially block the actual owners of the devices from using them with third party software, third party replacement parts, and third party repair services. Otherwise before you know it we will have electronic companies shipping computers & phones that only run pre-approved software, tractor companies stopping farmers from fixing their own machines, or train companies bricking locomotives when they detect it going to third party repair locations.

 

[Breit]

Well, in the industry epsecially in enterprise hardware this is quite common. Like for instance AMD CPUs in Dell servers are vendor-locked (fused) to work only in Dell mainboards or networking gear only working together with other gear from specific vendors (like switches or NICs accepting only specific SFP modules), some mainboards accepting only SSDs from specific vendors. It seems they are now gradually moving these practices over to the consumer market.

 

[Bagerklestyne]

Just saw the freshly announced DS925+ compatibility list now has only Syno branded drives on it.

I know we're supposed to be polite here, but that's a fair dickhead move by them.

After spending some time looking around, looks like Terramaster might definitely be the next purchase brand.

 

[phill]

I'm very disappointed with Synology with this move... I had my first 'Xpenolgy' setup back in 2014/2015 I think and it was setup with some WD Reds and at the time, it was amazing, did all I needed it to and over time I did need to replace it as because it was a bit of a hack, I needed to update it.

Sadly I've moved away from Synology and I've gone over to UnRaid which for me, is a mixed bag of good and bad which is a shame as I really did like the Synology setup, was simple and easy.. UnRaid needs a bit more attention and as it was setup, its not as fast as the Synology and as easy to configure. I am thinking of moving away and trying something else I think, but that'll take a little time and getting all the data from it to start with..

I'm definitely happier with the fact of staying with local storage. Yes its expensive but then you are in control of your own data, you don't have to worry what you save or anything of sorts, but it does give you far greater control and I think that is most important. I completely agree with the fact its a bad idea what Synology has done. The quote of theirs made me laugh "Following the success of the high-performance series, the company is now also increasingly relying on Synology's own storage media for the Plus series models to be released from 2025. As a result, users will benefit from higher performance, increased reliability and more efficient support."

I question how will it increase reliability when any drive can fail, what makes it any different from any other drive on the market?? Will that Synology label make it all better?? Personally I use the EXOS drives for the moment but I have a feeling I'll move away from them and install some Toshiba drives as one or two of my EXOS drives have failed.. And they are enterprise drives... Is there a higher level than enterprise??.... Enterprise Premier or Gold maybe?? Subscription services available.....

 

[ypsylon]

Never used NAS never will. Running StableBit DrivePool for years and I never looked back.

Synology is cornering the market better than Duke & Duke on Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice. They can go pound sand, because users won't stand for this, there is always option to move.

 

[Bwaze]

"The problem here is that Synology isn't a hard drive manufacturer and according to Arstechnica, the company is simply re-branding Toshiba hard drives and charges an extra $50 or so for their basic tier of drives, with higher-end tiers having a much higher premium."

Apparently the limit for the "basic tier" is 16 TB, any drive above that and the Synology premium is ridiculous:

Plus series Synology HAT3310 16TB costs around 370 Euros while an equivalent from Toshiba or Seagate is roughly 30 EUR cheaper, which when multiplied 4 times does not sound so little

- If you want 18TB or above you have to move the following choices: Toshiba MG09 - 330 EUR / Seagate Exos 370 EUR / WD Ultrastar 390 EUR / Ironwolf Pro 410 EUR and then you have Synology HAT5310 18TB at 750 Euros, more than double of some choices

 

[DaemonForce]

Never used NAS never will. Running StableBit DrivePool for years and I never looked back.

This is insanely cool. I had no idea this existed and have needed something like this for basic (failing) disk clone backup for a while.
There's nothing in the way of getting the data from the Internet all over again but the purpose of the disk has always been for shares.
Clustering makes zero sense, backups aren't really the name of the game, manual file cloning is too involved, RAID1 maybe...This looks good.
Thanks.