Synology Locks Key NAS Features Behind Proprietary Drive Requirement (tomshardware.com) 107
Synology's upcoming Plus Series NAS systems will restrict full functionality to users who install the company's self-branded hard drives, Tom's Hardware is reporting, marking a significant shift in the consumer NAS market. While third-party drives will still work for basic storage, critical features including drive health monitoring, volume-wide deduplication, lifespan analysis, and automatic firmware updates will be disabled, the publication said.
The restriction doesn't apply to Synology's 2024 and older models, only affecting new Plus Series devices targeted at SMBs and advanced home users. Synology itself doesn't manufacture drives but rebrands HDDs from major manufacturers like Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba, often with custom firmware that functions as DRM. According to Synology, the change follows successful implementation in their enterprise solutions and will deliver "higher performance, increased reliability, and more efficient support." A workaround exists: users can initialize a non-Synology drive in an older Synology NAS and then migrate it to a new Plus model without restrictions.
The restriction doesn't apply to Synology's 2024 and older models, only affecting new Plus Series devices targeted at SMBs and advanced home users. Synology itself doesn't manufacture drives but rebrands HDDs from major manufacturers like Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba, often with custom firmware that functions as DRM. According to Synology, the change follows successful implementation in their enterprise solutions and will deliver "higher performance, increased reliability, and more efficient support." A workaround exists: users can initialize a non-Synology drive in an older Synology NAS and then migrate it to a new Plus model without restrictions.
Bold strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see how that works out for them.
Re: Bold strategy (Score:1, Flamebait)
So they offer additional features/functions when users use drives with custom firmware?
And what, exactly is the problem?
My server drive controller offers greater speed/functionality when I connect SAS drives to it, but it will support SATA drives too, just with less functionality.
If the additional features relied on nothing more than being from a higher-priced vendor, I could see an issue, but when it requires custom firmware, it's OK I guess.
Re: Bold strategy (Score:5, Informative)
So they offer additional features/functions when users use drives with custom firmware?
And what, exactly is the problem?
Nope. They're taking away things that already work on our existing Synology hardware with commodity drives, and forcing consumers to buy drives from them, just like a Lexmark printer demanding that you buy their ink cartridges.
Basically, if we buy new Synology NAS systems, we'll be stuck forever buying hard drives through Synology from then on, at a HUGE premium.
That's a more than 71% premium for a drive that is not meaningfully better than the drive that I would otherwise have bought, with no obvious advantages to me, at least right now, because my current Synology hardware isn't locked down like this.
But that means that if I ever buy a replacement Synology NAS, every hard drive upgrade going forwards after that will cost an extra $1500. And for that $1500, I get absolutely *nothing* other than their vague assurance that the drives have been tested with Synology NAS hardware, which as a home user, I couldn't give a flying f**k about. I'm using untested drives right now, because they don't test drives soon enough to meet my capacity needs.
Even if they weren't charging an absolutely extortionate price premium, they're forcing you to blindly trust their branded drives without knowing who built them. That means we can't look at the drives and say, "I've had a lot of trouble with Seagate drives recently, so I'm going with WD or Toshiba or whoever. We just have to trust Synology and hope that they know what they are doing, which frankly, I do not.
That also means that the latest drives in the largest capacities will never be available to Synology users again, because it will probably take them *years* from when a new model gets released to when the price comes down enough for them to offer it.
This is very, VERY bad, and now that I have seen this, I've abandoned my plan to upgrade my Synology NAS later this year. I'll keep using the existing hardware for as long as it lasts, and then I will migrate to someone else's NAS instead — someone who isn't trying to extort an extra $1500 from me every time I replace my drives. If necessary, I'll build my own.
The only reasonable response is to never buy Synology hardware again.
Re: (Score:2)
But that means that if I ever buy a replacement Synology NAS, every hard drive upgrade going forwards after that will cost an extra $1500
Er, if I read this stuff right, you “just” need to keep the old NAS around and start each drive in it. Once formatted in a 2024 or prior Synology the not-branded disks will be allowed to do everything the branded disks are required for, even after you move it to the new Synology. So you are “stuck” keeping an old Synology around to “bless” every disk before you use it...
Lack of information.... (Score:4, Insightful)
As of today, you're right. Have you ever seen this happen where a company didn't have a 5-year plan to tighten the noose?
I give it a year before this workaround stops working, 2 years before the "grandfathered" disks lose the upgraded features, and 4 years before new non-branded disks don't work at all. The only question is, will Synology still be alive by the end of the 5-year plan?
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Or he could just transition to TrueNAS and get better hardware and software, without any of the weird hard drive restrictions.
Most NAS systems are a real racket. You get crappy hardware, a broken ass custom Linux that can't be easily replaced (because god knows what will work with the hardware), and they'll often try to force you to connect with their cloud or rope you into some software subscription model. The main thing you're buying is the form factor with the convenience of easily pulling out and replac
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Or he could just transition to TrueNAS [and get a lot of good stuff]
The word “just” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. That isn’t a trivial operation for a lot of people. Consider someone running a photography business who buys a NAS so they can have all their work product backed up locally. Yes, in theory they could follow some canned instructions on how to install and configure TrueNAS, but it is going to take them a lot of time, and they may get derailed at any point and not manage to complete the process because the software they loaded is maybe
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I was referring to buying a TrueNAS Mini, not building your own server and installing TrueNAS. For someone looking for video storage and has used Synology, TrueNAS isn't much different. When you buy their hardware you'll never have to look at a command line and there are plenty of "Apps" (Podman containers) to extend the functionality. TrueNAS is designed as an appliance OS and for most Synology users it would appear as such.
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Most NAS systems are a real racket. You get crappy hardware, a broken ass custom Linux that can't be easily replaced (because god knows what will work with the hardware), and they'll often try to force you to connect with their cloud or rope you into some software subscription model. The main thing you're buying is the form factor with the convenience of easily pulling out and replacing drives.
You also get a streamlined setup in a lot of cases. I run a small business ($200k to $400k/year revenue). I personally know how to set up servers, I like geeking out about things like ZFS and spool and RAID-Z. On the other hand for the business I write iOS apps, and that means Macs with MacOS. They have a backup system (Time Machine) that is fiddly to set up a NAS to support. I know because I’ve bought commodity Linux hardware, set up file sharing (I have tried both NFS and AFP) and attempted to
Re: Bold strategy (Score:2)
You are not the target audience that Op is describing. Kudos to you for keeping your technical chops up, but what about the topic of the post - people who don't or can't keep up? Or is it a requirement that at a revenue of 200-400k you should know how to setup ZFS on your NAS? Hot take if that is what you mean..
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This move with the hard drives has certainly soured my opinion of Synology, which was previously quite high.
It's more concerning in that it betrays a mindset:
that this is just one step towards monetising the user base a.k.a. enshittification.
A couple of years back they required one to sign-in to a Synology account to access existing functionality after the upgrade:
Version: 7.1-42661 [synology.com]
15. Starting from Advanced Media Extensions 2.0.0, users must sign in to their Synology Accounts in DSM to install HEVC and AAC
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I do appreciate your measured response.
I investigated it a little at the time, and what I found was similar to what you wrote (i.e. licensing issue).
>> Having to sign in to an online store ... to attach a payment to a non-free app, is pretty normal practice.
Except they don't require payment, they just want the customer to sign-in with a Synology account.
And this isn't isolated: Synology has been increasingly nudging customers towards Synology accounts.
To me, this is similar to Microsoft requiring an o
Re: Bold strategy (Score:2)
So they offer additional features/functions when users use drives with custom firmware?
And what, exactly is the problem?
Nope. They're taking away things that already work on our existing Synology hardware with commodity drives, and forcing consumers to buy drives from them, just like a Lexmark printer demanding that you buy their ink cartridges.
Nope. They are taking nothing away from existing products, they are implementing different features in future products.
Your 2024 (and earlier) Synology loses no features, your 2025 Synology will work differently.
Notice Synology publicly announced this change, it's not a stealth attack on the products you have in production now, it's a change in future products.
Re: (Score:1)
I doubt it hurts there bottom line all that much.
Synology understands there user base, which is primary the less technically inclined Apple type person. Smart enough to know they need onsite and offsite backups but not technical enough to easily wing an opensource nas with enough disposable income to buy an incredibly overpriced hard-drive caddy that needs to constantly phone home.
That's not a dig on there userbase there's times when I wish I could be that blissfully happy but alas I'm to much of an asshat
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Open source NAS isn't a competitor here. Countless similar proprietary NAS setups are.
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Unfortunately that comment proves my point about there user base.
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Yes, user base is normal people in need of external storage. Not nerds.
If you're a nerd, you probably have plenty of old machines you use as NAS if you need that.
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Unfortunately that comment proves my point about there user base.
I'm a pretty technical person. I like my Synology because it basically runs Linux and mdadm under the hood. It is also possible I am the outlier in using my NAS strictly as a network file server, a not insignificant number of people run VMs and Docker images and web services and all sort of other things on them. Basically there is very little difference between your opensource NAS and my Synology except for the fact is it is indeed also a nice hard drive caddy.
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So, how do you feel about being expected to pay extra for approved HDDs?
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You have to think about the type of people who need tons of on-site storage: video people and photographers. You start talking to them about building their own solution and their eyes will immediately glaze over. Especially if you're talking about a replacing their fancy hard drive caddy with something that requires them to utilize a screwdriver when it's time to replace a drive.
I run a NAS that does all sorts of shit, but it's literally just a PC with two hdds. Although I leverage all sorts of NAS function
Return it (Score:1)
When companies do shit like that return the unit and demand your money back
Re: (Score:2)
At least they're announcing it ahead of time, so you know which models to avoid, and the company, as a whole.
I have a synology diskstation from six years ago, and now I definitely know I won't be using them if I need to replace the system.
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I replaced my NetGear readyNAS with a Synology server a couple years back. ReadyNAS is no more. It looks like Synology isn’t to be trusted any more, either. Fewer and fewer choices.
And there are good reasons to buy a specialized device, rather than rolling your own. Power consumption, noise, and heat; a dedicated appliance is better on all three than building it yourself.
That's some bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
If their drives had something above and beyond, in hardware, that the system could only report for drives with those features, fine.
But cutting out reporting because somebody else's drive is installed? Do not buy their NAS equipment, under any circumstances. A company that starts dicking you around like this will not stop, it'll keep escalating as long as they still have customers they feel they can successfully exploit.
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Do not buy their NAS equipment, under any circumstances. A company that starts dicking you around like this will not stop, it'll keep escalating as long as they still have customers they feel they can successfully exploit.
Indeed. This is an enshittification step. Anybody that continues to buy their stuff becomes complicit.
UGREEN will fill the void! (Score:4, Funny)
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Are there any home NAS companies based in the US? UGREEN is Hong Kong based and I'm not comfortable with that. Synology is at least Taiwan based.
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I plan on running Unraid on whatever UGREEN NAS I get.
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Are there any home NAS companies based in the US?
iXSystems is US based. TrueNAS is quite good, and you can run it on a beige box PC for free.
T
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Cool. (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like I'll be locking my wallet away behind "not buying proprietary vendor lock-in garbage."
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I mean, people here probably already build their own Linux-based (e.g. FreeNAS) NAS's anyway.
Not sure why you would pay the huge premium to go with Synology.
Re:Cool. (Score:5, Insightful)
Those people here who have day jobs dealing with tech might very well wish for something they can just plug in and it works for their own personal stuff tech.
I have the capability to build a FreeNAS (or whatever) box. I don't have the interest, and I don't really want to make the time. I have a Synology because it just works; it was easy, and I don't have to worry much about things breaking, or dependency hell, or whatever... I slapped drives in it, powered it on, did some basic config, and Bob's your Uncle.
I don't spend 8+ hrs/day doing this stuff for money, just to get to the end of the day and spend hours doing it for no money. The premium isn't that much if you just buy the box and slap drives in it, vs. buying a decent system board, chassis, etc. The time savings, on the other hand, is significant.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm in that boat. I've stuck with Synology NASs since a 211j. That one is still running fine for the basic tasks but from drive age and health reports I just started looking into replacements. I have another that will move into the 211j's role when *its* replacement is set up.
I've looked at QNAP, TerraMaster, and other commercial options over the years, as well as setting up FreeNAS/TrueNAS CORE. The reliability, ecosystem (easy SW and apps on devices), security, and the amount of work I'd need to put in ha
Well this sucks (Score:2)
Back in 2014 I purchased a DS213j with 2GB drives. When I outgrew that I purchased a DS216j with 4GB drives in 2017. A few years later I purchased a DS218j with 8GB drives. All three NAS' have been running perfectly for all these years using WD RED drives. I was just thinking the other day it's time for a 16GB NAS and of course Synology would have been my first choice, until this distressing news. I looked into FreeNAS a few years back (which is now TrueNAS I believe). What are the other alternatives availa
Re: (Score:3)
I'm hoping you mean TB, otherwise that's not a very impressive porn collection.
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LOL, yes, TB. It's VERY impressive indeed!
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They were great units. The only issue I ever had was a 4TB drive went bad within warranty. I always purchase a spare hard drive when buying a NAS so I was up and running in a few hours and the bad drive was replaced under warranty waiting to be used as a spare again. Other than that, rock solid. My 2TB unit is relegated now to image backups of computer systems I work on/repair. I've been in the IT industry since the 80s and have a copy of every driver, documentation, and useful software I ever encountered s
You are OK...for now (Score:2)
However, I suspect this will only be available for a limited time so, as someone who was just starting to look at replacing my 8-year old Synology NAS I'm now not sure I will be getting a new Synology which is a sham
Re: (Score:3)
If you want to hack around on an otherwise solid storage platform, run vanilla FreeBSD.
You can also run ZFS on Linux if you don't want to deal with BSD at all. I can't speak to that with any authority, but based on reports on the net at large, it seems to work pret
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There is always HexOS, I know nothing about it other than that its a wrapper on top of TrueNAS designed to make it easier to use and that it doesn't pull any of the consumer-unfriendly crap this article talks about.
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>"TrueNAS is probably what you want. You get GUI management of everything you need to make it work"
Indeed. We have both TrueNAS Scale and Synology. Started with TrueNAS and it is great. The reason we bought a large Synology was for their Surveillance Station product (security video) which is completely web based and pretty fantastic. We bought 30 of their branded drives to go with it. We also have Unifi Protect, which has a lot of great features, but doesn't scale as big and the UI didn't quite do e
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, typo, should have been TB.
XigmaNAS (Score:2)
Years ago FreeNAS went commercial, and there was an open source fork called NAS4Free, which eventually rebranded as XigmaNAS. I've been running that for many years, and it's been rock solid, but I'm not pushing it hard. It's also managed with a web GUI, and has support for a crazy long list of features. I just use it for NFS and TimeMachine.
Re: (Score:2)
UnRaid is what I'm using. What's nice about it is you can mix drive sizes as long as parity is the biggest one.
On the one hand... (Score:2)
I fully understand why they did this. Their old hardware compatbility list was a PITA to navigate. There were some drives where one revision of the firmware was great, and another version of the same drive was unusable. Ultimately they're making their tech support much easier with this change. Also, their disk prices aren't really a premium and are sometimes cheaper than something like a Seagate or WD drive.
On the other hand, fuck this and stupid bullshit like this.
Re: (Score:1)
My experience is the opposite. I've run 12-drive Synology arrays for years, first the 3614xs (2014) which was replaced by a 3621xs+ (2021) and the 21 version had this limitation where health info was locked for non-Synology drives. That could be disabled by editing a config file but voided whatever warranty or support. Also when I looked at the time their drives were damn near double the cost.
Re: (Score:2)
I fully understand why they did this. Their old hardware compatbility list was a PITA to navigate. There were some drives where one revision of the firmware was great, and another version of the same drive was unusable. Ultimately they're making their tech support much easier with this change. Also, their disk prices aren't really a premium and are sometimes cheaper than something like a Seagate or WD drive.
If these proprietary drives are indeed cheaper than Seagate or WD market drives, then someone would buy the proprietary drives and resell them at a profit. Also, if prices weren't an issue, the marketing would have touted that. Instead, the marketing pitch is "higher performance, increased reliability, and more efficient support." No mention of price.
Another thing, why are they requiring the use of non-standard drives? In the storage business, second sourcing is a requirement. So, Synology is saying th
Re: (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, it's definitely a dumb idea, it's just I can sort of half-way understand it as more than just a money grab.
Very stupid idea in light of an infinite number of alternatives out there. Synology is literally just a linux box with hot swap drive trays and a fancy gui. It's nothing special.
Re: On the one hand... (Score:2)
The synology drives don't have proprietary interfaces (physical connections), they have proprietary firmware (software in the drive).
The new synology devices will provide basic functionality with generic drives, and offer increased functionality with proprietary drives.
The issue is that prior Synology devices provided the increased functionality with generic drives, and that is changing on NEW devices, not older Synology devices.
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Also, their disk prices aren't really a premium and are sometimes cheaper than something like a Seagate or WD drive.
Synology 20 TB: $720. WD Red: $420. I'd call that a premium and a half, and then some. Mind you, I only looked at B&H, but they usually are about as competitive as you can get.
Re: On the one hand... (Score:2)
That's only an issue if you require the increased functionality the proprietary drives support in new Synology devices.
Your 2024 Synology doesn't require the proprietary drives to offer the increased functionality, you haven 'lost' anything on your older Synology...
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That's only an issue if you require the increased functionality the proprietary drives support in new Synology devices.
Your 2024 Synology doesn't require the proprietary drives to offer the increased functionality, you haven 'lost' anything on your older Synology...
Untrue. I get a SMART status update periodically with unsupported drives on a several-year-old Synology. Volume-wide deduplication is also possible to enable with command-line tools on the existing hardware, but Synology arbitrarily limits it to SSDs. I don't want deduplication, because I use my hardware for backups, and deduplication increases risk of data loss, but still...
The more important thing, though, is that it starts with this. It's a slippery slope, and who knows where that slope ends? It's c
Keurig... (Score:1)
So they are going to Keurig themselves.
I really like how they're claiming this is somehow a benefit to the customer. Who warranties the drives? How do you know which brand/model drive you're going to get. For example, I avoid He drives. Will they give that info? This seems like a really dumb decision from the customer point of view. But I'm sure some MBA will get a metric fuck-ton of money when the quarterly stock price jumps. Then they'll cash out when they lose half the customer base a year later.
TrueNAS (Score:5, Interesting)
We are migrating aways from proprietary to open source. Why?
Once bitten twice shy.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
Stop feeding the Trolls.
TrueNAS II (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with open source DIY NAS solutions is what happens when a drive fails. Not the actual rebuild and such, but the actual "which drive has actually failed" part. You have an array of 8+ drives, and one is dead. You can tell that in any NAS solution, open source or not. But which drive is it physically? You have to pick, and don't pick wrong in case you screw up the array.
The "proprietary" NAS solutions have a little LED on them or something that identifies the drive - like "Disk 2 failed" and you p
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> But which drive is it physically?
My high-tech solution is a piece of label tape on the carrier or door with the last four digits of the serial number of the drive.
Hasn't crashed on me for over a decade.
Dell-like (Score:2)
How Dell of them.
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HP would like to show you how it's done
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Severity: Warning, Category: Storage, MessageID: CTL55, Message: Controller 1 (PERC H750 Adapter) event log: PD 08(e0x40/s8) is not a certified drive
Status Non-Critical
Remaining Rated Write Endurance Not Applicable
Forever outstanding disk alerts because I dared to purchase non-Dell disks, and Dell will hide details from SMART.
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NexSAN did this (Score:2)
No upgrade for me! (Score:1)
I guess, I will stay on my current version forever.
Prices (Score:5, Informative)
Synology SAT5221-3840G 3.84TB
$1,044.93
https://www.amazon.com/Synolog... [amazon.com]
vs
SAMSUNG 870 EVO 4TB (MZ-77E4T0B/AM)
$249.99
https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG... [amazon.com]
Even if the Samsung has a higher failure rate, between Raid 6 and MUCH lower prices to replace...
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Even with enterprise level Samsung drives, the cost per drive is almost half that! Just crazy. And the only version that ssd's a make difference for are very underpowered for what you would have to pay for the ssds. It's a complete joke. I have 6 8tb evos in my ds620+slim and it cost nearly half that as well. Just terrible decision for a company who can be replaced. Their spinning hdds are somewhat more reasonable but I have specific brands I like and that they don't use(I've had too many seagates go bad on
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Synology SAT5221-3840G 3.84TB
$1,044.93
https://www.amazon.com/Synolog... [amazon.com]
vs
SAMSUNG 870 EVO 4TB (MZ-77E4T0B/AM)
$249.99
Yeah why buy a Cybertruck when a bicycle is cheaper? If you're going to compare prices, then you should compare like products. Synology is not rebranding low grade 3 generation behind consumer trash. To be clear they are still charging a high markup, but a more directly comparable product would be a Samsung PM883 3.84TB which does have an RRP of around $800ish though I see it from as little as $600
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I agree the price is high compared to off the shelf enterprise grade drives, but it's actually in line or a bit cheaper than vendor enterprise SSDs (it's actual competition). A 3.84 TB HP SATA SSD is $1600 from HP or $900-$1100 from others.
Enterprise customers wanting hardware with a single vendor SLA warranty won't balk at that pricing.
Why does an NAS need DRM? (Score:3)
Synology itself doesn't manufacture drives but rebrands HDDs from major manufacturers like Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba, often with custom firmware that functions as DRM.
Why does an NAS need DRM? That's almost as concerning as forcing people to buy their shitty rebranded drives in order to get deduplication and the like. I feel like technology is going backwards when it comes to end-user needs, and shit like forced DRM top to bottom smashed together with ad supported everything is leading the charge.
HP trys to lock you to there overpriced storage on (Score:2)
HP trys to lock you to there overpriced storage on servers.
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HP trys to lock you to there overpriced storage on servers.
HP has a lot of garbage practices these days./p.
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DRM as in 'flag in the drive firmware saying this is a Synology drive' such that the NAS won't accept non-flagged drives as 'legit'. Same idea as a printer that identifies OEM ink cartridges vs others.
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DRM as in 'flag in the drive firmware saying this is a Synology drive' such that the NAS won't accept non-flagged drives as 'legit'. Same idea as a printer that identifies OEM ink cartridges vs others.
That sort of makes sense, from a corporate philosophical level.
Re: Why does an NAS need DRM? (Score:2)
DRM as in 'flag in the drive firmware saying this is a Synology drive' such that the NAS won't accept non-flagged drives as 'legit'.
Wrong.
That is NOT what Synology is implementing, they are saying some advanced features only work when you use proprietary drives, generics drives only offer more basic functionality.
Memories... (Score:2)
And not good ones.
Back in the day (early '90s), we had a Motorola VME mini computer (specifically a MVME147 board) as a server. It used SCSI, and when we needed more storage, we went out and bought a 300MB (yes, MEGAbyte) off the shelf SCSI drive. Needless to say, it didn't work. Only the branded hard drives would work.
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That's pretty funny. I had a Sun 4/260 (12 slot deskside VME) with the add-on tape drive in the enclosure that also typically came with a full height SCSI drive. Except in my case, I had a Quantum 3.5" that I think might even have come out of a Macintosh. The SCSI controller was a normal 2-connector (non-Sun) VME board in an adapter carrier.
I'm torn here (Score:2)
On the one hand, yeah, it's kinda crappy.
On the other hand, Synology does a LOT for nothing more than the price of the hardware. I've gotten phone support on three-year-old appliances. Their Active Backup for Business application allows the automatic backup of unlimited Hyper-V/VMWare VMs *and* workstations. They have dozens of plugins, a DDNS service, and mobile apps, all bundled in with the purchase price. ...and what they're paywalling here is a health check system that would likely be unreliable on unce
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There's a reason storage cluster systems are getting hit by stuff like ceph though.
Re: I'm torn here (Score:2)
Pay walling health check
Deduplication
Storage pool creation
Why does my NAS... (Score:4, Funny)
Why does my NAS need me to replace magenta ink?!? WTF?!?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe not ink, but the firmware could enforce periodic hard drive replacement. I could pop up an error based on uptime saying something like:
Hard drive number AE35 [Apologies to Arthur C. Clarke] is reaching its end of life. Your system will operate in a degraded state if this hard drive isn't replaced within 30 days. Only genuine hard drives from XXX will be accepted into this network attached storage system. Installing a non-XXX branded hard drive will result in the system continuing to operate in a degra
Weird choice (Score:5, Interesting)
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Maybe for some people who feel the price premium is worth it, but RAID is for "inexpensive" and the whole point is you can use cheaper less reliable disks and make up for it with the overall system.
I also think a cycle has been happening for "traditional enterprise SANs" with both stuff like Hyperconverged and CEPH... making whole storage units cheaply disposable.
They've been doing this for several years now (Score:2)
nothing new here.. you can also add any drive to the database as compatible. Though I'm sure they'll disable this now too.
https://github.com/007revad/Sy... [github.com]
Firmware (Score:4, Informative)
>"and automatic firmware updates will be disabled"
That has never been available except with Synology drives. Nothing new there.
How much is the pricing lock in? (Score:2)
DIY NAS (Score:2)
Second best thing I ever did was replace my WD NAS' OS with pure vanilla Debian. Best thing I ever did was replace it with a self-built server running Proxmox.
Copying NetApp's strategy (Score:2)
Ah, vendor lock in. The path of the lazy. Instead of innovating and creating a compelling product and service reputation. Probably just custom firmware to identify the drive. Hopefully people will soon produce a tool to copy and write the firmware. Of course they'll not ship the units with drive trays that accept drives, only maintain airflow, just like NetApp and similar ilk. 3D printing to the rescue. Fuck these guys.
Rapacious Assholes (Score:5, Informative)
A diskless 8-bay Synology DS1821+ NAS will set you back USD$999.99
One. Thousand. Dollars. For 4GiB ECC RAM and no storage.
Contrast with the NAS I built [pcpartpicker.com] seven years ago around an Intel i3, micro-ATX mobo, 32GiB of ECC RAM, six 4GB Hitachi spindles in a RAIDZ2 vdev, and TrueNAS Core (nee FreeNAS). The 8-bay case isn't quite as sexy as Synology's, but it acquits itself quite well.
It cost me USD$1700.00 at the time. By far, the largest expense was the hard drives and RAM, both of which have significantly fallen in price since then. If I were to build the same specs today, it would be at least $400.00 cheaper.
Even so, it was way cheaper than going with Synology. Now it seems Synology have adopted the HP printer ink business model, except without the tissue-thin "loss leader" justification -- no way is that chassis actually worth a thousand bucks.
Build your own NAS. It ain't hard, it will be more capable, and you'll save money.
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't had mod points in about 3 years now, ever since I flamed the mods for posting clickbait. But I would upvote this if I could.
Bookmarked for a future rainy day.
Re: (Score:1)
Reminds me of inkjet printer DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
The razor and blade business model has morphed into something which now looks more like the inkjet printer and printer cartridge, or the John Deere payload files required when you replace a part.
Some form of boxed warning:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxed_warning
needs to be in the marketing materials and on the boxes of these types of products so customers can make informed decisions up front when they're about to purchase products with technological vendor lock-in requirements.
Regrettably, I don't see this happening in the United States (due to an entrenched business lobby, among other things) , but it could happen in the EU if it gets bad enough.
missing the point (Score:2)
As a growth mindset person with an MBA...looks like they hired an MBA with a fixed mindset. Probably a management consultant.
Synology has so many opportunities to build a subscription product people would just love. Like: create a two-sided marketplace for us nerds to do the stuff we love and make our lives better. Move stuff from prem to non prem. People would pay a lot for that. Could disrupt AWS!
I don't really want to work for Synology, but now kinda do just to make you happy.
Hit the brakes for a second... (Score:2)
The Tom's Hardware story cites 2 German sites that don't cite any sources themselves. Until we hear this from Synology's own mouth or actual reviews of the hardware pop up stating this, take it with a grain of salt. I have a hard time believing Synology, which has been very pro-community in the past, would do something this stupid.