131–140 of 679 posts
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I've had a couple of Synology drives for many years (DS1520+, DS918+). They've always worked fine (still chugging away). I have had terrible luck with Drobo.
They have way underpowered cpus compared to what you can get for the same money elsewhere. They're just a bad deal.
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I don't know why you got downvoted, you're right. Many models that are currently on sale as new models have CPUs that are 10 years old.
There must be more than that, another explanation, if they are slow. Ten year old CPUs were plenty fast already, far more than enough even, to power an NAS device. My Windows 11 often takes many seconds to start some application (Sigil, Excel, whatever), and it sure isn't the fault of the CPU, even if it's "only" a laptop model (albeit a newish one, released December 2023, Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 3800 (max 4800) Mhz…
That depends on the CPU… Some are optimised for power consumption not performance, and on top of that will end up thermally throttled as they are often in small boxes with only passive cooling.
A cheap or intentionally low-power Arm SoC from back then is not going to perform nearly as well as a good or more performance oriented Arm SoC (or equivalent x86/a64 chip) from back then. They might not cope well with 2.5Gb networking unless the NICs support offloading, and if they are cheaping out on CPUs they might not have high-spec network controller chips either. And that is before considering that some are talking to the NAS via a VPN endpoint running on the NAS so there is the CPU load of that on top.
For sort-of-relevant anecdata: my home router ran on a Pi400 for a couple of years (the old device developed issues, the Pi400 was sat waiting for a task so got given a USB NIC and given that task), but got replaced when I upgraded to full-fibre connection because its CPU was a bottleneck at those speeds just for basic routing tasks (IIRC the limit was somewhere around 250Mbit/s). Some of the bottleneck I experienced would be the CPU load of servicing the USB NIC, not just the routing, of course.
> far more than enough even, to power an NAS device.
People are using these for much more than just network attached storage, and they are sold as being capable of the extra so it isn't like people are being entirely unreasonable in their expectations. PiHole, VPN servers, full media servers (doing much more work than just serving the stored data), etc.
> There must be more than that, another explanation
Most likely this too. Small memory. Slow memory. Old SoC (or individual controllers) with slow interconnect between processing cores and IO controllers. There could be a collection of bottlenecks to run into as soon as you try to do more than just serve plain files at ~1Gbit speeds.
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Min/Max pricing theory? Selling 10 units at $10 profit is far far better than 100 units at $1.50 profit. Maybe even $2 per. Why? Because the more you sell, the more support, sales, and marketing staff you need. More warehouses, shipping logistics, office space, with everything from cleaners to workststions. Min/Max theory is exceptionally old, but still valid. So making a crappier product, with more profit per unit,…
Shouldn't you be pricing the increased cost of support/sales/marketing into your profit calculations?
I haven't looked at them in years, but there are formulas for all of that. EG to help you work out if it makes sense.
Too bad. I switched to UGREEN (DXP6800 Pro) will likely stick with them now. It was easy to install an alternate OS (Fedora 42 in my case) on it, and the hardware appears to be very nicely built.
I wish the article put actual numbers or evidence of declining sales. I agree that reduction of sales is the most likely cause, but if they say that sales plummet without actual proof it becomes poor journalism.
If they had insider leaks I would imagine they mentioned that aspect so it's possible that this part is derived from speculation.
I just went ahead and editorialized the title with the insertion of an "allegedly" since the sales drop part is unsubstantiated.
> if they say that sales plummet without actual proof it becomes poor journalism
Proof is a high ask. Evidence would be great. But here yeah, waving the premise of the article away with "some reports say" is hardly journalism.
But their hardware is also terrible. Their disk stations for consumers had 1G NICs until recently, and still underpowered CPUs. The sales had to decline for them to be convinced to upgrade to 2.5G in 2025. But then they removed an optional slot for 10G in 923+ model (they still would have made money from it, as it costs +$150), so when the industry moves to 10G, you can’t upgrade the component and should buy the whol…
I totally agree with you. The appeal for me was the "it just works" factor. It's a compact unit and setup was easy. Every self-built solution would either be rather large (factor for me) and more difficult to set up. And I think, that's what has kept Synology alive for so long. It allows entry level users to get into the selfhosting game with the bare minimum you need, especially if transcoding (Plex/Jellyfin) is men…
However, now we know the direction their leadership would like to take, I can't see much of the tech savvy crowd returning to them, given we know they'll find another revenue screw to turn.
We have to start making open source hardware that we can fully control. It's the only way to be free. Corporations cannot be trusted. Any goodwill they build up eventually becomes a resource for them to capitalize on.
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They have way underpowered cpus compared to what you can get for the same money elsewhere. They're just a bad deal.
Hi there, I was looking to get a NAS that I can just install and not have to worry about maintenance too much and senility was at the top of the list. If not synology what would you suggest?
It's entirely possible that their newer units are crappier than the old workhorses I have.
I don't use any of the fancier features that might require a beefier CPU. One of the units runs a surveillance station, and your choices for generic surveillance DVRs is fairly limited. Synology isn't perfect, but it works quite well, and isn't expensive. I have half a dozen types of cameras (I used to write ONVIF stuff). The Surveillance Station runs them all.
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Sounds like you don't argue hard enough
Eh. I'm out of fucks to give.
I get paid either way.
I'm generally looking for another job when it gets to this point. It's not healthy to stick around when things get to that point.
This doesn't seem permanent.