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Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

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Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#301

Post by Neywiny »

RedShift1 wrote: post #94
nosianu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are correct that the software should perform better, but I don't think the average buyer understands this - they buy a new (and sometimes quite expensive) device, yet it feels sluggish for them, so they feel like they bought a bad product. But even in the more business/enterprise segment you're getting screwed over. Let's go to the product selector here: https://www.synology.com/en-uk/products?product_line=rs_plu…

Who's out here getting service updates for their CPU?

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#302

Post by seg_lol »

potato3732842 wrote: post #226
mixermachine wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about run-of-the-mill HDDs here with SATA 3 (2005) and SMART (<2000) interface. No product is perfect but these interfaces are very well tested and billions of machines run as expected with them. The move from them was purely for money reasons.

Based on my experience dealing with SFPs I highly suspect they looked at their bug tracker and concluded that 13% of the sketch-ass mystery drives were causing 50% of their labor expenditure. And by "issues" I mean highlighting all the little cases where they had a) coded to spec with no ability to handle out of spec but foreseeable if you're cynical (which the fresh out of school junior engineers who typically wind…

Everyone claiming it was support driven is 100% making stuff up.

Show this was anything other than a money grab so the Synology was the sole supplier for drives.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#303

Post by Fischgericht »

layer8 wrote: post #298
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...

The article is about the changed actual policy deployed with DSM 7.3, that only just started rolling out. Your link hasn’t been updated in over two months, so doesn’t reflect that yet. Edit: Updated KB article is here: https://kb.synology.com/en-us/DSM/tutorial/Drive_compatibili...

This is not "my" link. That link is part of their press release.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#304

Post by stego-tech »

Too little, too late. The second they made that decision, I struck Synology as a partner for both my homelab (gotta replace the DS1019+ at some point) and in my purchasing capacity at work. That was some NetApp-grade BS and I wasn’t going to tolerate it.

I’m just glad the NAS scene saw the opening left by Synology’s boneheaded decision-making and capitalized on it. Unraid and TrueNAS have stormed the battlefield and shown Synology’s typical plus-line customers that they can get more for less with a bit of DIY, and NUC vendors have capitalized on this misstep with NAS hardware platforms that just require your preferred software/OS to operate.

This singular decision is going to take a decade of good will to undo. Astonishing that they footgunned themselves so bad, so willingly.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#305

Post by j45 »

rickdeckard wrote: post #119
GolfPopper wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but there's a pretty big difference between 'ban' and 'unsupported'. It's entirely possible to do the latter without doing the former. Synology actively and painfully punished its customers who didn't use its own drives, deliberately degrading their experience in order to try and force them to buy more of Synology's own drives. Cutting support can be an understandable, if unwelcome, business decision. Bu…

There's a misunderstanding, I don't defend Synology's decision. I'm just stating that from my experience it is unlikely that especially Customer Support would step up and complain about such a decision, it would more likely be R&D, Product or Sales. Not to throw shades at Customer support at all. They are the ones dealing with the pressure of fast resolution time per case vs. large complexity to identify root-causes…

Customer feedback is feedback from Sales.

Post sales, the feedback comes from customers.

Pre-sales, it might be heard from sales.

R&D and Product might not get real world input or feedback as directly as the actual paying customers.

Maybe it's just me.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#306

Post by delfinom »

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…

Ill assure you the amount of Linux bros that bought it was probably already small. Most buyers of preconfigured solutions are buying it because it's a preconfigured solutions with no need for a computer science degree.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#307

Post by j45 »

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...

Thanks for sharing.

It seems like they want to make sure NAS' are running NAS grade drives, instead of consumer grade (SMR) drives which can have serious issues when rebuilding an array after a drive failure.

Customers buying inappropriate drives for NAS and then eventually blowing back on Synology, if a driver of this could be handled differently.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#308

Post by kstrauser »

lexicality wrote: post #66
joshstrange wrote: post #3

Thank god they reversed course. I’m coming up on needing another NAS and I was not looking forward to digging through alternatives. I’ve run raw Linux servers, I’ve run UnRaid, and now I have Synology and it’s been the best “set it and forget it” solution yet. Yes, the hardware is overpriced but it works and I’m willing to pay a premium for that.

Good luck when it doesn't work though. I decided to take the hit and pay their exorbitant HDD prices on the basis that they came with a warranty etc and one of the drives failed within 3 months. It was genuinely like pulling teeth. They demanded I ship the drive at my own expense from the UK to Germany and they didn't send a replacement for 3 weeks after it arrived at their warehouse. I had to buy another drive to re…

That was the absolute deal killer for me. Even if the white labeled drives were the same price, which they decidedly weren’t, if I have a Seagate that dies, I know a local shop where I can buy a replacement an hour later. All Central Computers has in stock from Synology is a 12TB drive for $300 (LOL no). Amazon Prime’s largest drive is an 18TB unit for $800 (WTF are you kidding me?).

I don’t have time to wait around for them to ship a drive. I certainly don’t have the budget to stock up on spares at their exorbitant prices.

Hard pass.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#309

Post by avianlyric »

Fischgericht wrote: post #282
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,…

What are you talking about. This is a quote directly from the page you’ve linked to:

> At the same time, with the introduction of DSM 7.3, 2025 DiskStation Plus series models offer more flexibility for installing third-party HDDs and 2.5" SATA SSDs when creating storage pools.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#310

Post by INTPenis »

m000 wrote: post #73
INTPenis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have inside info about this? I'm just wondering why the internal support people would fight a decision like only allowing supported drives, wouldn't that make their job easier?

A tiny bit easier, at the risk of reducing the profitability of the company, which could mean losing their jobs.

It depends on who their target audience is. VMware for example have strict hardware compatibility lists because their target audience is big enterprise. But Synology being a consumer NAS, this decision was perhaps not wise. They're sort of standing in two markets. They need to make a decision as to which products are enterprise and which are consumer.

I don't think any enterprise clients would mind a strict HCL.

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