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Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

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Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#191

Post by kstrauser »

luca4 wrote: post #71
osivertsson wrote: post #51

When leadership makes decisions that are so out of touch with their customers it also severely impacts internal morale. Yeah, so they reversed eventually. But the technical and support people at Synology probably tried to fight this and lost. That feeling of being ignored despite having given this company your everything for many years. I bet many woke up feeling that the magic that made Synology a good place to work…

Yes and choosing a NAS brand is not something you change your mind like switching an android phone brand after 2-3years. This will stick quite a bit.

Yep. I’d already started moving things out of Docker on my DS923+ and onto RaspberryPis, of all things, which are perfectly powerful for my needs. Synology’s police shoved me toward planning and implementing alternatives as I vowed never, ever, to spend a penny on such a locked down device. It’s going to be hard for them to un-ring that bell.

In a few years, when it’s time to replace this NAS, if they’ve demonstrated that they’re serious about doing right by their customers, I may replace it with another Synology. And if not, I’ll have already migrated my services off it such that I’ll only need a “dumb” NAS and can choose from any of their competitors.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#192

Post by varispeed »

osivertsson wrote: post #51

When leadership makes decisions that are so out of touch with their customers it also severely impacts internal morale. Yeah, so they reversed eventually. But the technical and support people at Synology probably tried to fight this and lost. That feeling of being ignored despite having given this company your everything for many years. I bet many woke up feeling that the magic that made Synology a good place to work…

> That feeling of being ignored despite having given this company your everything for many years.

People need to learn, that unless you are a real shareholder, never give company everything. Give just enough so they don't fire you. Company is not yours and it will drop you the moment spreadsheet says no.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#193

Post by mort96 »

yason wrote: post #144
rickdeckard wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I see where you're coming from, in my experience ESPECIALLY Customer-Support is usually happy to have a clear-cut criteria to reject support-requests as "officially out-of-scope". I wouldn't be surprised if the decision was made BECAUSE Customer Support highlighted the support-effort to debug all these unique customer-setups within warranty, and then someone stepped in and proposed to kill two birds with one st…

> Customer-Support is usually happy to have a clear-cut criteria to reject > support-requests as "officially out-of-scope". All they needed was criteria at which point they can tell their customers "Please test if this reproduces with genuine Synology drives, and if they do we'll file an internal bug to fix your issue."

At that point, you have essentially made it a policy already that you only support Synology-branded drives.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#194

Post by NewsaHackO »

baobun wrote: post #135
NewsaHackO wrote: post #77

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.

Hmm, I couldn't find a source for that elsewhere, just slop rereporting in loops. 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 journalis…

It's not you, it's just that we've allowed "journalists" to get away with this for so long. They essentially write opinion pieces as new articles with absolutely no research. : Synology is a private company, so I guess they can't use stock filings or stock prices, but they should at least quote something substantial and add to the discussion.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#195

Post by kstrauser »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #139
anal_reactor wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. I'm out of fucks to give.

I've been at a couple of places where I've had similar experiences and I get to the point where I'll explain it once, and if they're not listening or discard the suggestion without really considering it, then I'll just wait for them to figure it out themselves. 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.

I’ve been there. After a while, I realized that they’re paying for my advice. If they take it, awesome. If they don’t, and I feel like I did a good enough job communicating my reasons, then that’s their option, and their consequences.

It’s annoying, but either way I get paid.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#196

Post by chrbr »

rickdeckard wrote: post #85
osivertsson wrote: post #51

When leadership makes decisions that are so out of touch with their customers it also severely impacts internal morale. Yeah, so they reversed eventually. But the technical and support people at Synology probably tried to fight this and lost. That feeling of being ignored despite having given this company your everything for many years. I bet many woke up feeling that the magic that made Synology a good place to work…

While I see where you're coming from, in my experience ESPECIALLY Customer-Support is usually happy to have a clear-cut criteria to reject support-requests as "officially out-of-scope". I wouldn't be surprised if the decision was made BECAUSE Customer Support highlighted the support-effort to debug all these unique customer-setups within warranty, and then someone stepped in and proposed to kill two birds with one st…

I know nothing about the reasoning behind the original decision from Synology, nor the internal politics at play, but typically the customer support tail is not wagging the dog of the rest of the company. Might be bias/anecdata from the places I've worked, but product usually drives everything, and the support staff has to deal with the consequences.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#197

Post by barrkel »

toyg wrote: post #128
glenstein wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could also oppose the change simply out of a belief in what's best for the customers, and an ethos of hardware compatibility. It would represent no change to their burden to continue the company's long-standing policy.

> It would represent no change to their burden to continue But it actually is: because sales must keep growing, so the support burden typically increases linearly - while hiring does not, more often than not. I've seen this at a few companies now: * CS teams get built, delivers great support * sales increase (partially thanks to that support, but there is no way to show it with metrics) * hiring in CS does not keep p…

It's a little bit trickier though, if you're selling hardware with a one off cost and not a subscription. Because your installed base grows even with flat revenue. The lifetime cost of CS (including the calls from people who need to be turned down) needs to be baked into the sales price, but that's a bet.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#198

Post by PaulKeeble »

luca4 wrote: post #71
osivertsson wrote: post #51

When leadership makes decisions that are so out of touch with their customers it also severely impacts internal morale. Yeah, so they reversed eventually. But the technical and support people at Synology probably tried to fight this and lost. That feeling of being ignored despite having given this company your everything for many years. I bet many woke up feeling that the magic that made Synology a good place to work…

Yes and choosing a NAS brand is not something you change your mind like switching an android phone brand after 2-3years. This will stick quite a bit.

A bad reputation never goes away either. Trust once lost is not something that returns easily. Some customers might forgive a company but many wont and any business willing to be this scummy will almost certainly do something else (or the same thing again in a few years).

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#199

Post by flkiwi »

potato3732842 wrote: post #189
osivertsson wrote: post #51

When leadership makes decisions that are so out of touch with their customers it also severely impacts internal morale. Yeah, so they reversed eventually. But the technical and support people at Synology probably tried to fight this and lost. That feeling of being ignored despite having given this company your everything for many years. I bet many woke up feeling that the magic that made Synology a good place to work…

I think it speaks volumes about the work ethic (or less charitably, moral character) of the HN comment section that so many people are bewildered as to why support would prefer to troubleshoot questionable hardware than tell people "fuck off and come back with supported hardware" all day. Unless you're a real POS doing that sort of work sucks way worse than actually working to solve people's problems even if the latt…

Are you saying Synology’s move to support first party drives was a good thing? Plenty of companies deal with unpredictable hardware and, in fact, Synology has for years, in part thanks to standards.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#200

Post by its_notjack »

eecc wrote: post #178
8fingerlouie wrote: post #162

The decision to restrict 3rd party harddrives may be part of the reason why sales (allegedly) plummet, but i'm guessing lack of innovation also plays a big part. Synology has been resting on the laurels for years. They had a "hit" with DSM 6, then did mostly nothing for a decade, released DSM 7, and again, nothing but minor things since. On the hardware side of things, they're mostly still using decade old hardware,…

Oh nice, thanks for mentioning UGREEN. I had a quick look at the website and it looks fairly cheap. I wouldn't trust their software but the base system comes on an MMC, does it mean I can flash it with TrueNAS or Unraid?

Yes, their units come with a HDMI out, and you can connect them up to install onto them like any other server - but if you ever want the (admittedly very, very good) factory software back on them I'd recommend imaging the internal storage first as I couldn't find a way to get their OS installed back afterwards.
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