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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

#321

Post by AlexandrB »

snowwrestler wrote: post #292
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.

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

How so? Does this imply drives "age out" while sitting at distribution warehouses too?

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#322

Post by crazygringo »

I'm confused.

It sounds like only certain features will be unavailable for non-Synology drives:

> Additionally, certain features such as volume-wide deduplication, lifespan analysis, and automatic firmware updates for third-party devices will be disabled.

It sounds like you can still use non-Synology drives just fine, but not do certain advanced things with them?

So why is this being called "locking"? I use Synology at home just as very basic RAID. Am I correct that this wouldn't affect me at all?

And are there any reasons why this is justifiable (e.g. hard drive manufacturers lying about health information) or is it just a cash grab?

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#323

Post by brookst »

littlestymaar wrote: post #247
spease wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a great argument for selling drives, not for locking your devices down to practically require them The counterargument is, people won’t listen and then blame Synology when their data is affected. At which point it may be too late for anything but attempting data recovery. Sufficiently nontechnical users may blame the visible product (the NAS) even if the issue is some nuance to the parts choice made by a tec…

> The counterargument is, people won’t listen and then blame Synology when their data is affected I see this kind of arguments “X had to do Y otherwise customers would complain” a lot every time a company does something shady and some contrarian wants to defend them, but it really isn't as smart as you think it is: the company doesn't care if people complain, otherwise they wouldn't be doing this kind of move either,…

Your absolute conviction is misplaced. Support is expensive to provide, especially on hardware that’s expensive to ship around.

This may be a bad move, and you’re certainly right that Synology expects to make more profit with this policy than without it, but it’s a more complex system than you understand. Irate customers calling support and review-bombing for their own mistakes are a real cost.

I don’t blame Synology for wanting to sell fewer units at higher prices to more professional customers. Hobbyists are man attractive market but, well, waves hands at the comments in this thread.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#324

Post by Ylpertnodi »

bhouston wrote: post #296

I used to be a Synology fan with owning many of their devices for work and office. But I've moved on to TrueNAS now and haven't looked back. TrueNAS with ZFS is just amazing.

It would be interesting to know the negatives of Synology, and why did you move from them. Gaining nothing from your comment, it could be that your boss was pissed his ex- got a job as security there.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#325

Post by bayindirh »

Hamuko wrote: post #268
adam_th wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unraid is brilliant if you're interested in BYO hardware. It can be setup with mix and match drives, supports docker and virtual machines. Realistically it's a bit more work than Synology to get up and running, but once it is, the only thing you really need to do is update the software from time to time

I've heard things about Unraid not being that performant due to the design of the disk array solution.

You can add a cache SSD to keep hot data to reduce access times, and why do you need that much of a throughput to begin with?

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#326

Post by rufugee »

As someone who switched about a year ago from FreeNAS to Synology, this is extremely disappointing. Synology has been a great experience up to this point. I have pools, one on supported WD Reds, and the other on a hodge podge of drives I had collecting dust.

Both pools have been very reliable so far. But if they continue down this path, I'll seek a different solution.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#327

Post by jjkaczor »

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…

Yes, it is the overall ease of configuration, operation - but also for me the app ecosystem.

Well, my Synology NAS is from... 2013 (have upgraded the drives 3-times), so... it is/was time to replace it, and I can tell you that it won't be with another Synology device...

I won't go back to QNAP, which is what I had before Synology, because during an OS update it wiped all my data (yes, there was a warning, but the whole purpose of having a RAID NAS is safe reliable data storage)

May check-out a custom hardware build, combined with Xpenology.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#328

Post by kstrauser »

crazygringo wrote: post #322

I'm confused. It sounds like only certain features will be unavailable for non-Synology drives: > Additionally, certain features such as volume-wide deduplication, lifespan analysis, and automatic firmware updates for third-party devices will be disabled. It sounds like you can still use non-Synology drives just fine, but not do certain advanced things with them? So why is this being called "locking"? I use Synology…

Not automatically applying firmware updates to 3rd-party drives is reasonable.

Disabling filesystem features when using them is insane.

Whats next — no encryption if you're using a Seagate?

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#329

Post by NKosmatos »

As an owner of two Synology boxes (and maintainer of a couple more), I’m not happy about these news. Synology needs to rethink its user base, upgrade their hardware offerings and avoid be lead by profit hunting board members.

I hope someone high ranking from Synology reads all the comments from this post (and many others from https://mariushosting.com ) and takes the correct decisions. Please don’t let Synology become like the other greedy companies out there.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#330

Post by donatj »

Is there a good alternative these days for someone that only really wants network attached storage, e.g. some drives in a box, easy RAID setup and local network access via SMB?

I use my server for everything you'd use NAS Apps for. I have an aging Seagate NAS and had been eyeing Synology but this gives me pause.

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