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The Synology End Game

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Re: The Synology End Game

#281

Post by M95D »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #268
M95D wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice to be rich and not care, isn't it... I calculated that over the entire lifetime of my current system, the energy will cost me more than the system itself, all 10 HDDs included, and it's only 50 W or so.

The rich people I know got that way by being very selective regarding what they care about.

You're most probably right, but this discussion started with my statement that there are no low power NAS boards.

The need for low power NAS boards is an entirely different matter. And so are advices on how to get rich.

Re: The Synology End Game

#282

Post by M95D »

iamshs wrote: post #69
M95D wrote: post #50

But self-building a NAS is still a problem, and I'm also talking about this [1] article from the same blog: There are NO low power NAS boards. I'm talking about something with an ARM CPU, no video, no audio, lots of memory (or SODIMM slot) and 10+ SATA ports. Sure, anyone can buy a self-powered USB3 hub and add 7 external HDDs to a raspbery, but that level of performance is really really low, not to mention the USB r…

Low power and reliability is why I want to just use my Mac Mini M4 + DAS as storage solution among 15 people. I am not sold on it because Mac Mini has lots of life in it to be solely devoted to this use case.

And how much power does the DAS consume?

Re: The Synology End Game

#283

Post by CharlesW »

edem wrote: post #235
plqbfbv wrote: post #126

I have used Synology NASes for a good 15y now, and the one I'm on will likely be my last (DS920). I have watched the software evolve from "quite good" to "very good" to "lets reimplement everything ourselves and close it off as much as possible". It's sad because back in the day, at least for me, the brand was the perfect UX in many regards: small form factor and low power, price-accessible 4/5 bay NASes, a couple CP…

What are the current options? I've been looking but I haven't found any. I have a DS923+ and it works fine, but I can already see what you are talking about.

I've purchased 3 QNAP NAS products over the course of a decade or so, and remain happy to recommend them. Their reputation was damaged by a raft of ransomware attacks in 2021 and 2022, but since then they've been better about improving overall system security and forcing basic security hygiene on users (who often don't know any better).

Re: The Synology End Game

#284

Post by M95D »

nine_k wrote: post #274
M95D wrote: post #50

But self-building a NAS is still a problem, and I'm also talking about this [1] article from the same blog: There are NO low power NAS boards. I'm talking about something with an ARM CPU, no video, no audio, lots of memory (or SODIMM slot) and 10+ SATA ports. Sure, anyone can buy a self-powered USB3 hub and add 7 external HDDs to a raspbery, but that level of performance is really really low, not to mention the USB r…

Second-hand Supermicro boards with 6, 8, even 12 SATA ports, 8-16 GB of ECC RAM, a preinstalled CPU, and often a passive radiator are pretty accessible or eBay or suchlike. Of course they are old, but if they did not break after 5-7 years in a server rack, most likely they're not going to break for 10 more years in a less demanding environment at home.

Not low power. Electricity over 10 years would cost 10 times more than the board.

Re: The Synology End Game

#285

Post by tenuousemphasis »

edem wrote: post #235
plqbfbv wrote: post #126

I have used Synology NASes for a good 15y now, and the one I'm on will likely be my last (DS920). I have watched the software evolve from "quite good" to "very good" to "lets reimplement everything ourselves and close it off as much as possible". It's sad because back in the day, at least for me, the brand was the perfect UX in many regards: small form factor and low power, price-accessible 4/5 bay NASes, a couple CP…

What are the current options? I've been looking but I haven't found any. I have a DS923+ and it works fine, but I can already see what you are talking about.

TrueNAS Community Edition?

Re: The Synology End Game

#286

Post by layer8 »

cyberpunk wrote: post #120
Shank wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The encryption is also broken. If you use encrypted shared folders, you have an arbitrary filename limit ( https://kb.synology.com/en-ro/DSM/tutorial/File_folder_path_... ). If you use volume encryption, your encryption key is stored on the NAS itself, which is capable of decrypting the data, unless you buy a second Synology NAS ( https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2023/06/volume-encryption-in-syno... ) to act as a key vault…

maybe it has a kensington lock?

The drive bays also have individual locks, but neither would prevent a thief who knows what they are doing.

Re: The Synology End Game

#287

Post by zer00eyz »

Lord-Jobo wrote: post #114
zer00eyz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know why I tell my loved ones to get apple products? Because I don't want to support them. Your telling me that Synology is giving out apple levels of support in trade for vendor lock in. It sounds like the sort of thing I recommend to others because it wont be my problem. Go ask a "car guy" who has a civic or something that is LS swapped what car you should get. He's not going to recommend anything he is goin…

Yeah but the "I want a nas but I don't know anything about computers" crowd is microscopic. Choosing that for your customer base is stupid and shortsighted.

> Yeah but the "I want a nas but I don't know anything about computers" crowd is microscopic.

This is still a very "nerdy" take on the market. Though correct I dont think your seeing the other segments that are out there:

The "I want more storage im sick of paying rent every month" crowed is growing.

The designer/editor/youtuber who doesn't want to be their own IT department is growing.

Re: The Synology End Game

#288

Post by layer8 »

tetris11 wrote: post #179
torben-friis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main issue with their system is how closed it is. I got an issue where mind would randomly start writing disk like crazy and maxing cpu usage, to the point I was bothered by the noise. I’d stop all containers, leave it as close to idle as I could manage, still spiking. There was no way I could learn what was causing it. I would like to assume it was a disk maintenance process or something, but for all I know it co…

There are guides on how to mainline Synology NAS's to run up-to-date debian on them https://forum.doozan.com/list.php

If you want to run Debian instead of DSM, you have a much wider choice of NAS hardware than just Synology.

Re: The Synology End Game

#289

Post by layer8 »

mihaaly wrote: post #273
codeflo wrote: post #12

The year is 2025. Delivering a good product is not considered profitable enough anymore. If a company or product is beloved by customers then that means it doesn't squeeze them to the max. This is clearly money left on the table that someone will sooner or later extract. High-end brands are not exempt from this.

Our organization joined this trend some years ago. The original founders (did ca. 30-35 years ago) passed 60 and cashing out. Sold the company to an investor. Small fish, <100 employee, but in a niche of engineering app development with long time clients, very long time clients. Since then, we are a self declared sales oriented organization, company meetings are about success stories of billing more for the same serv…

From Wikipedia, the Synology founders are still involved in the company’s leadership.

Re: The Synology End Game

#290

Post by PaulHoule »

I got an i5 tower almost 10 years ago from

https://ithacareuse.org/

for use as a home server, it has a ZFS RAID 1 where I replaced the drives once and I guess I should again soon if I care about the warrantee. I did have a challenging upgrade because Ubuntu made a /boot partition that was too small to reliably update the kernel but I had a spare SSD sitting around which let me just install the OS on the new SSD and swap it in without any risk. It runs the ubiquiti controller, plex, and a few other services. It is not a powerful server by any means but it is massively overpowered for what it does which is better than being underpowered. I messed around with appliances in the 2000s and they inevitably left a bad taste in my mouth. They had 10% of the power of a real computer but cost 70% as much or they used an i3 and you couldn’t install a GPU —- penny wise and pound foolish.

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