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Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

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Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#291

Post by tiew9Vii »

apetrovic wrote: post #208
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…

What are "competitive options"? It's a genuine question. Before Synology, I had some DIY server in a Fractal Design case, and noise and, to be honest, bulk were a problem. Also, maintenance of the server wasn't funny. I switched to Synology about six years ago (918+). The box is small, quiet, and easy to put in the rack together with the network gear. I started with 4TB drives, gradually switched to 8TB over time (dr…

The new Chinese NAS's due to hit the market look extremely promising.

- Minisforum N5 Pro NAS

- AOOSTAR WTR MAX

Good compute power as they know users will be running Docker and other services on them, using the NAS as a mini server.

OS agnostic allowing users to install TrueNas, Unraid, favourite Linus distro of choice.

The Minisforum and AOOSTAR look to be adding all the features power users and enthusiasts are asking for.

If you just want a NAS as a NAS and nothing else, the new Ubiquiti NAS looks great value as well.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#292

Post by snowwrestler »

kyrofa wrote: post #70

> When a drive fails, one of the key factors in data security is how fast an array can be rebuilt into a healthy status. Of course, Amazon is just one vendor, but they have the distribution to do same-day and early morning overnight parts to a large portion of the US. Even overnighting a drive that arrives by noon from another vendor would be slower to arrive than two of the four other options at Amazon. In a way thi…

Failures should be rare, which means a spare HD might be sitting in a drawer without spinning for years, which HDs don’t like to do.

When you need to replace a drive, it’s better to purchase one new. It was manufactured recently and not sitting for very long.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#293

Post by timcobb »

horsawlarway wrote: post #289
timcobb wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have had three Synology boxes over the last 20 or so years Sounds like this is the problem with Synology... How are they going to make money when their products are so good!

Honestly, seems like they got roughly one hardware sale to him every 6 years or so. Which is along the same trend line I'm seeing for my purchases. That's pretty solid for hardware sales. My guess is that they've over invested in things like their "drive" office software suite, and don't know how to monetize it or recoup costs. I like Synology, but locking me to their drives is a hard "no thanks" from me. Next NAS wo…

Every six years is enough for apple and other companies who have other sources of revenue and have staked out this high quality niche. But androids, as an example, are more of an average 3 year lifespan if I'm not mistaken, which is closer to what Synology would probably want to achieve but cannot.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#294

Post by nolok »

sersi wrote: post #218
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…

On the other had, they have also slowly destroyed their app ecosystem. The photo solution is much worse than it used to be both in terms of features and the now removed support for media codecs. Video station has pretty much been dead for years. At this point, I'm not that convinced that there's anything that synology offers that isn't handled much better by an app running on docker. This wasn't true 10 years ago.

The photo apps is great because their photo backup app on android is great, and the only thing that works as well as google photo to ensure all your photo and videos are saved, untouched, no duplicate, no missed media.

That's it. For the actual viewing / sorting / album you need something like immich or photoprism, the photos app actually sucks.

Video station has been removed in the latest minor update, not even a major update, they just took it out no warning no replacement. But then again it was not that good, jellyfin is the way to go for me.

Their crown jewels are active backup, hyper backup and synology office. That's where they own their space.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#297

Post by itsanaccount »

just chiming in, I have 3 synology products, recommended them for a decade. As they've betrayed me, and I'll never buy another one, and I'll help friends move to whatever I move to. Thinking rock64 appliances with TrueNAS, will start donating to that project.

I don't know what sect of leadership (MBAs?) sees continual enshittification as the strategy but I'll fight this economic warfare forever.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#298

Post by Scene_Cast2 »

frontlodjkgi wrote: post #234
transpute wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

e.g. QNAP has rare hardware combo of half-depth 1U low-power Arm NAS /w mainline Linux support, 32GB ECC RAM, dual NVME, 4x hotswap SATA, 2x10G SFP, 2x2.5G copper, hardware support for ZFS encryption, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40868855 . In theory, one could fit an Arm RK3588 SBC with NVME-to-PCIe-to-HBA or NVME-to-SATA into half-depth JBOD case. That would give up 2x10G SFP, 2xNVME and ECC RAM.

Maybe it's just me, but rare harware isn't something I'd look for in a reliable storage system unless I had a really special need general hardware just couldn't be made to do

"Rare" in this case is referring to a unique offering, not to the availability of that particular part.

As I understand, migrating to other hardware wouldn't be an issue if availability becomes an issue.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#299

Post by Shank »

beaviskhan wrote: post #288
Shank wrote: post #275

I personally think that in 2025, you should treat the NAS as a purely storage product and buy your hardware from that perspective. TrueNAS or UniFi’s new NAS product fulfill that goal. From there, supplement your NAS with a Mac Mini or other mini-PC for storage-adjacent tasks. Synology’s whole business model (arguably QNAP’s too) depends on you wanting more drive bays than 2 and wanting to host apps and similar servi…

> The premium they ask is substantial. You can spec out a beefy Dell PowerEdge with a ton of drive bays for cheap and install TrueNAS, and you’ll likely be much happier. Yeah, but then you have a PowerEdge with all the noise and heat that goes along with it. I have an old Synology 918 sitting on my desk that is so quiet I didn't notice when the AC adapter failed. I noticed only because my (docker-app-based) cloud bac…

> Unless Synology walks back this nonsense, I'll likely not buy another one, but I do think there is a place for this type of box in the world.

I would recommend a mini-ITX NAS enclosure or a prebuilt system from a vendor that makes TrueNAS boxes. iXSystems does sell prebuilt objects but they’re still pricey.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#300

Post by Shank »

timcobb wrote: post #290
Shank wrote: post #275

I personally think that in 2025, you should treat the NAS as a purely storage product and buy your hardware from that perspective. TrueNAS or UniFi’s new NAS product fulfill that goal. From there, supplement your NAS with a Mac Mini or other mini-PC for storage-adjacent tasks. Synology’s whole business model (arguably QNAP’s too) depends on you wanting more drive bays than 2 and wanting to host apps and similar servi…

This is what I need to research, I don't understand why we need NAS hardware at all, aren't the controllers and drivers in an average box running Linux enough for the same software raid that Synology does?

I perceive the main benefit to the NAS hardware to be ease-of-management in terms of RAID via a software stack, and of course, physical hardware slots for holding lots of disks. You can easily build a NAS with pure Linux/FreeBSD and a case with disks inside.
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