Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs • Hacker News Board

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#281

Post by nottorp » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:38 PM UTC

reactordev wrote: post #201

jacquesm wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is interesting here is that Synology leadership is quite technical and there was no acquisition or other big event that I am aware of that resulted in this strategy. It was a complete own goal and as predictable as could be. Synology apparently wasn't aware of what their brand values were as perceived by their loyal customers and that's the kind of move you make at your peril. I'll be surprised if they survive t…

There is no reason to use a synology device anymore with RPI’s having sata shields and other SoC boards that are readily available that run Linux. Yes, Synology was easy but so is the decision to not ever use them again…

For one rPIs are severely i/o limited still. May be fine with one ssd.

For two, if you like power adapters going into boxes out of which usb cables to go more external hard drives, a Pi may be fine. If you want one neat box to tuck somewhere and forget about it, they aren't.

But then people buy Intel "NUCs" where the power adapter is larger than the computer box...

And three, the latest Pis have started to require active cooling. Might as well go low power x86 then.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#282

Post by Fischgericht » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:39 PM UTC

Fischgericht wrote: post #264

NOT true. They have NOT fully reversed on this. Please read: https://kb.synology.com/en-global/DSM/tutorial/Drive_compati...

Exec summary for those who think their time is not worth this evil madness:

The only change is that they now allow you to use any 2.5" SATA SSD. Everything else, meaning: 2.5" SATA HDDs (the by far most common thing you would want to use) and NVME SSDs: Still a no-no.

No, there was no lesson learned here by them at all.

The liked article specifically is wrong here:

"Third-party hard drives and 2.5-inch SATA SSDs"

No, not hard drives. 2.5" SSDs only.

Very sorry to spoil the party, but sadly Synology STILL hasn't learned the lesson. :(

Let's check again after they have lost 95% of their customers...

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#283

Post by kristofferR » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:39 PM UTC

oompydoompy74 wrote: post #164

It’s so incredibly easy to build a TrueNAS box these days I don’t know why anyone would go the Synology route.

It's easy to build the hardware, not easy to build the software. Most people aren't aware how feature rich the Synology OS is.

You can get something similar if you download and set up 50 Docker images, but that's not easy. Just look up how you do HDD image backups of your computers to your Synology and to your TrueNAS for example, it's way more complicated.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#284

Post by Khaine » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:40 PM UTC

It's too late. They can't be trusted. They have fucked themselves.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#285

Post by alphazard » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:42 PM UTC

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…

This is why it's so important to track dissenting opinions before a decision is made and before the consequences are revealed. Were I an investor in Synology I would be calling for some people to lose their job over being this wrong when the right answer was easily accessible. There's probably some people who got this right who could take a shot at running things, but you can't know without having the dissenting opinions in writing ahead of time.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#286

Post by kstrauser » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:42 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #230

AJRF wrote: post #48

They tried it though - remember that if you are ever trying to buy another. There are people at the company who wanted this and got greedy, and are only backtracking now because it negatively impacted them. Don't forgive them, and don't buy Synology.

And they might only be backtracking to get a few more sales until re-applying the restrictions, feeling justified because that's how the devices were originally advertised. The key word in the article being "quietly" - they didn't apologize or even announce the change, it seems. The update also "Added an option to postpone important DSM auto-updates for up to 28 days after the first notification.", suggesting mandato…

I agree with the first.

For the second, Synology has an option to apply important updates automatically, where I think that means infrequent security updates, not routine DSM version bumps. I interpret the new option to mean something like still installing the updates, but after a number of days have passed, presumably to give you time to cancel it if the news blows up with stories of bricked machines.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#287

Post by ekianjo » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:42 PM UTC

reactordev wrote: post #201

jacquesm wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is interesting here is that Synology leadership is quite technical and there was no acquisition or other big event that I am aware of that resulted in this strategy. It was a complete own goal and as predictable as could be. Synology apparently wasn't aware of what their brand values were as perceived by their loyal customers and that's the kind of move you make at your peril. I'll be surprised if they survive t…

There is no reason to use a synology device anymore with RPI’s having sata shields and other SoC boards that are readily available that run Linux. Yes, Synology was easy but so is the decision to not ever use them again…

you dont even Pi and sata shields, just buy a SOC that has direct M2 ports...

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#288

Post by kalleboo » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:42 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #62

fennecbutt wrote: post #42

I have a ds920 4 bay from synology. It's a pretty decent product, their browser OS for it is incredibly good and useful, the performance is pretty good and I've stuck extra ram in it, ssd for caching reads/writes (altho I have it disabled for writes). But after what they've done recently I don't know if I'd use em again. I know everyone jusy says "build your own!!!11" I used to be like that too I love tech. But somet…

"build your own" just means buy a desktop PC and install an O/S

It's not common for a desktop PC to have 4-6 drive bays these days

And besides the OS you need to install and maintain the apps, like backup software, photo management software, etc.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#289

Post by kstrauser » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:45 PM UTC

bapak wrote: post #82

jeffparsons wrote: post #21

Don't get confused here: they didn't decide that their policy change was wrong — they just didn't expect quite as much backlash. Make your purchasing decisions accordingly.

[flagged]

I don’t think that’s true. They apparently thought that was their business, but it’s not what their customers think it is. And having that much of a mismatch between what you think you’re selling and what everyone else thinks you’re selling often ends very badly.

For example, Kodak thought they were in the business of selling film. Their customers thought they were a company that sold ways to take photos. Kodak ignored what their customers wanted, the ability to take photos easily, in favor of their desire to sell more film. That cost them dearly when digital cameras took over.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#290

Post by leokennis » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 12:46 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #209

jacquesm wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is interesting here is that Synology leadership is quite technical and there was no acquisition or other big event that I am aware of that resulted in this strategy. It was a complete own goal and as predictable as could be. Synology apparently wasn't aware of what their brand values were as perceived by their loyal customers and that's the kind of move you make at your peril. I'll be surprised if they survive t…

I don’t know if their brand is that great. I have been using synology NAS for about 15 years. It is very solid and easy to use, but the hardware is expensive, non customizable, the underlying OS is based on an ancient linux kernel. I have now run into the volume size limits (200TB) and disk sizes keep increasing exponentially. And they don’t support enterprise SSDs (SAS/U.2). So in my mind I was already thinking of m…

I find Synology NAS's to be at the sweet spot between "too simple for anything except accessing some files remotely via the vendors app" (like WD) and "another tech babysitting project".

DSM is rock solid in my opinion, and gives enough freedom to tinker for those that want to. The QuickConnect feature makes it easy to connect to the NAS without being locked in to one specific app.