Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move • Hacker News Board

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#121

Post by niuzeta » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 6:55 AM UTC

I've been very happy with my Synology NAS that has served me so well, but forcing this sort of vender lock-in is simply unacceptable. I suppose this means I'll have to look for some other solution.

The problem is - I've formatted my drives with SHR(Synology Hybrid RAID - essentially another exclusive lock-in) and this would mean a rather painful transition to the new drive, since this now involves getting a whole new drives to format and move data to, rather than a simple lift-and-drop.

Ugh.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#122

Post by niuzeta » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 6:56 AM UTC

trumpeta wrote: post #119

The reason I chose Synology over others was their SHR "filesystem", where you can continue adding heterogeneously sized disks after constructing the FS and it will make the most use possible out of the extra capacity in the new disks. When I researched it ZFS did not yet have the resizing feature merged, now it does, though I think it is still not able to use this extra space. I'm wondering if anybody has any better…

I'm in exactly same situation myself.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#123

Post by TiredOfLife » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 6:56 AM UTC

trumpeta wrote: post #119

The reason I chose Synology over others was their SHR "filesystem", where you can continue adding heterogeneously sized disks after constructing the FS and it will make the most use possible out of the extra capacity in the new disks. When I researched it ZFS did not yet have the resizing feature merged, now it does, though I think it is still not able to use this extra space. I'm wondering if anybody has any better…

Windows storage spaces

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#124

Post by system2 » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 6:58 AM UTC

We've deployed Synology across multiple client environments for almost a decade, and it's been an incredibly reliable platform. Barring the usual hard drive failures (which are inevitable over time), we've had zero issues with SSO integration, expanding arrays with expansion units, seamless hardware upgrades, or the application layer. It just works.

That’s why I’m hoping Synology rethinks its position. Swapping out trusted, validated drives for unknowns introduces risk we’d rather avoid, especially since most of our client setups now run on SSDs. If compatibility starts breaking, that’s a serious operational concern.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#125

Post by ycombinatrix » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 6:59 AM UTC

trumpeta wrote: post #119

The reason I chose Synology over others was their SHR "filesystem", where you can continue adding heterogeneously sized disks after constructing the FS and it will make the most use possible out of the extra capacity in the new disks. When I researched it ZFS did not yet have the resizing feature merged, now it does, though I think it is still not able to use this extra space. I'm wondering if anybody has any better…

Same here, went with synology for SHR.

However I did notice that the performance was substantially worse when using heterogeneous drives, which makes SHR somewhat less valuable to me.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#126

Post by tankenmate » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 6:59 AM UTC

nehal3m wrote: post #120

transpute wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> QNAP has terrible quality/stability at the OS level Some QNAP devices can be coaxed into running Debian. https://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/Debian_Installation_On_QNAP https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/QNAP

Sure, but don't you lose the app ecosystem then?

Debian's software repo is about 500 times bigger than Synology's.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#127

Post by lostlogin » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 6:59 AM UTC

TiredOfLife wrote: post #123

trumpeta wrote: post #119

The reason I chose Synology over others was their SHR "filesystem", where you can continue adding heterogeneously sized disks after constructing the FS and it will make the most use possible out of the extra capacity in the new disks. When I researched it ZFS did not yet have the resizing feature merged, now it does, though I think it is still not able to use this extra space. I'm wondering if anybody has any better…

Windows storage spaces

I don’t think that is comparable with a good NAS.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#128

Post by RedShift1 » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 7:00 AM UTC

TiredOfLife wrote: post #123

trumpeta wrote: post #119

The reason I chose Synology over others was their SHR "filesystem", where you can continue adding heterogeneously sized disks after constructing the FS and it will make the most use possible out of the extra capacity in the new disks. When I researched it ZFS did not yet have the resizing feature merged, now it does, though I think it is still not able to use this extra space. I'm wondering if anybody has any better…

Windows storage spaces

It's all fun and games until your volume shows up as RAW and you're dead in the water.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#129

Post by ycombinatrix » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 7:01 AM UTC

Renaud wrote: post #90

Synology isn't about the NAS hardware and OS. Once setup, it doesn't really matter as long as your config is reliable and fast, so there are many competitive options to move to. The killer feature for me is the app ecosystem. I have a very old 8-bay Synology NAS and have it setup in just a few clicks to backup my dropbox, my MS365 accounts, my Google business accounts, do redundant backup to external drive, backup im…

Fwiw I don't use a single one of their apps. I bought it for their hybrid raid feature.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#130

Post by TiredOfLife » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 7:02 AM UTC

kyrofa wrote: post #106

gambiting wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>You should have spare drives on hand. I've never heard of anyone doing that for a home nas. I have one and I don't keep spare drives purely because it's hard to justify the expense.

Heh, I suppose you've heard of one now. Fair enough, I could be in the minority here.

Yeah. If you don't have a couple spare 100TB ssd nases you can turn on in the event of failure yoh are doing it wrong