Synology Reverses Course on Some Drive Restrictions (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0179715588
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/1723232/synology-reverses-course-on-some-drive-restrictions
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/synology-caves-walks-back-some-drive-restrictions-on-upcoming-nas-models/
The company had expanded its verified drive policy to the entire Plus line a few months earlier. Synology-branded drives carried substantial price premiums over commodity hardware. The HAT5310 enterprise SATA drive costs $299 for 8TB compared to $220 for an identically sized Seagate Exos disk. Users who installed non-verified drives in affected models faced reduced functionality and persistent warning messages in the DSM interface.
Synology said today it is collaborating with third-party drive manufacturers to accelerate testing and verification of additional storage drives. Pool and cache creation on M.2 disks still requires drives from the hardware compatibility list. Synology did not clarify whether the policy change applies to previous-generation products.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/synology-caves-walks-back-some-drive-restrictions-on-upcoming-nas-models/
This is totally your brain on MBA (Score:5, Insightful)
No conception of how the product is used or what your strength is at as a business and what you want your reputation to be in the industry. Just a pure play for revenue.
This is one of those times I'd want to have to recording of the meeting where this was proposed and how it was justified as a good idea, I think it'd be enlightening to see how what are supposed to the smart people could get rooked into such a bone-headed idea.
Re: (Score:2)
I could easily build my own NAS. I bought a Synology because it just works out of the box and it has a decent bundle of software ready to go. When it was time to replace my current 2019 model I was definitely going to just build my own after their move to requiring compatible drives. It's not like they're the cheaper option.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly, people in the market for a NAS device like that are going to be people who have some knowledge of how these things work, what the other options are on the market and probably have some semblance that are in fact like only 3 HDD manufacturers on the planet and Synology is not one of them. They're gonna feel like these drives are a rip and thats all it takes sometimes, the feeling of getting ripped and nobody likes that feeling.
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Synology may have learned their lesson (probably not) but it is highly unlikely that I will be buying another one of their products.
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Yeah we also use QNAP at my job and they do it the obvious correct way "heres a list of what we know works"
[1]https://www.qnap.com/en-us/com... [qnap.com]
[1] https://www.qnap.com/en-us/compatibility/?model=731&category=1&filter%5Btype%5D=1
Drive firmware (Score:2, Interesting)
It's possibly Synology uses drives with odd sector sizes. IBM was famous for using 520 byte sectors with special firmware in AS/400 machines.
Re: (Score:2)
Motorola did this back in the day with their MVME141 (or was it 147?) board. It listed certain drives as compatible, including whatever the CDC 300MB SCSI drive was. But it wouldn't work with an off-the-shelf drive; it needed Motorola approved firmware.
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Sure, a lot of things are possible. I think their "special" firmware just makes the model number of the drive match the sticker on top and makes sure it is recognized as compatible. While it's true that I would hope they are at least CMR drives, NAS drives are otherwise pretty straightforward.
Re: (Score:1)
No a big selling point for Synology is the testing suite that checks drive health and they just couldn't rely on manufacturers to implement their own SMART firmware to spec so those tests could be believed. Some mfgr's even started releasing different firmware on the same SKU so one drive would test properly whereas another wouldn't.
Firmware verification is why Synology's branded drives cost so much more. There's big liability there for them.
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> Firmware verification is why Synology's branded drives cost so much more. There's big liability there for them.
It's perfectly reasonable for them to have branded, tested drives which they certify. What's not reasonable is only allowing those drives.
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> "It's perfectly reasonable for them to have branded, tested drives which they certify. What's not reasonable is only allowing those drives."
^^^THIS
There *is* some value to buying their branded drives. And I did just that last year when I had the option of using third-party drives on the large system I bought for Surveillance System at work, but didn't, I went with their drives. I had 100% assurance everything would work and the warranty was handled by them. There is also the option for pre-installati
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No, they do not. They just want you to buy drives from them, at a fat premium and with no added value at all.
Would you kindly Synology yourself (Score:1)
Amidst cut features, older hardware and this hard disk fiasco of a revenue grab, the reputation of Synology has definitely taken a serious hit. There's not a hair left unscathed in the comments by current and what used to be possible Synology users. I had considered getting one.
No way am I trusting that company again. Good bye Synology. Hello everybody else.
Fair market Synolgoy $299 Exos $265 or 10% (Score:2)
That is about 10% price premium (Oct, 2025) if you look at a supplier (B&H in the US) that has both in stock at the same time - you can call it a revenue grab or value added warranty control, all depends on your point of view. But check out the prices to get a balance view
Synology HAT5310 8TB has 2.5 MTTF compared to 2.0 for Seagate Exos 8TB. If you don't want to spend for enterprise grade, you can buy the Synology 8TB HAT3320 Plus Series for $199. So if you actually look at the prices, it is not e
Too little, too late (Score:2)
Anybody same will not buy from them again. The insane ones do not learn anyways.
Bad reasoning for initial lockouts (Score:2)
I've read elsewhere that one of the possible reasoning for forcing Synology-only drives was that supporting (tech support) other drives led to compatibility issues and was a reason they wanted to eliminate those as variables when trouble arose. So it was supposed to be a win-win: customers ran into fewer compatibility issues, and they got sales of their own drives instead of losing them to competitors' drives
But some idiot in the chain of decision decided that gouging customers was also a better 'win', and
Been using WD Reds (Score:2)
I've been using 8 TB WD Red drives in my Synology NAS for a couple years now and have had zero issues.
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Same here but Synology is now dead to me knowing they are now anti-consumer.
Their reputation is still gone (Score:3)
They have already trashed their reputation. Since they have done it once, they will surely do it again.
Avoid buying them, and replace any existing Synology units with another vendor when you can.
Too late (Score:2)
You showed your true colors Synology. I purchased many of your NAS' in the past but going forward your products are non-existent to me. You WILL eventually fuck consumers again, it's just a matter of time.
Disappointing to say the least (Score:2)
This whole thing is pretty unfortunate in that Synology make really great products that work very well. I'd hate to have to leave them due to petty greed, but hopefully they've turned the page and continue to respect their clientele going forward.
I've been using Synology NASs since about 2008 and never looked back. I've probably installed about 12 or 13 serious NASes for clients, including clustered rs3621xs+ units. It was a wakeup call to me, as I didn't expect myself to be wondering if I should write th
Synology: Fuck you, users (Score:2, Funny)
Synology before: Fuck you, users.
Synology now: Fuck you, users, only a bit less hard.
Re: (Score:2)
Now its not a hate fuck. It just a little rough.