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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

#381

Post by j45 »

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…

I over-purchased a NAS and ended up with QNAP, even thought Synology provided more power (lower electricity use) to performance ratio.

In hindsight buying a QNAP that was more than the Synology equivalent felt like a good idea but I didn't really get into it quickly enough.

I also got burned by Western Digital's scandal of selling WD Red drives that really weren't that got them caught in a class action lawsuit. Can't see myself buying them again.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#382

Post by j45 »

adam_th wrote: post #236
apetrovic wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 don't mind the idea of BYO hardware, especially if it's an old server with hotswap drive and hotswap power built in.

Increasingly, with the time I have towards the things that interest me, I just want storage and a bit of compute to be like a home appliance, reasonably set and forget it and leave my messing around on a USFF computer.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#383

Post by Melatonic »

numpad0 wrote: post #256
yurishimo wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone would care if Synology gave priority to their own drives. A checkbox during setup that says “Yes, I know I’m using these drives that have not been validated blah blah blah” would be plenty. That’s not what Synology did however and that’s the main reason everyone is pissed.

People are going to ignore that and leave bad reviews online, which will have compounding effects. SMR drives works in RAID until CMR buffer regions are depleted, and then RAID starts falling apart. This will undoubtedly create wrong impressions that Synology products, not the drives, are not trustworthy.

What if the device had a minimum benchmark feature that would test any new drive ? And fail the worst ones ?

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#384

Post by j45 »

jjkaczor wrote: post #327
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 who…

Important story to note - it's not a backup if you don't have more than one copy of it (beyond multiple copies on one NAS).

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#385

Post by j45 »

HenriTEL wrote: post #258
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, in the end, no matter how polished your apps are, a NAS is a tech product sold to tech people. Tech people want to choose their hard drive.

Synology did a good job of being relatively turnkey.

QNAP has more configurability for better and worse.

Curious ot hear what other manufactures can compare to them out of the box.

Self-configuring something is a different thing.

I simply do not care any more to rebuild raids and manually swap drives under duress when something is going down. I just replace existing drives with new ones well before they die after they've hit enough years. Backblaze's report is incredibly valuable.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#386

Post by j45 »

msh wrote: post #319
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…

qnap seems to have a similar app ecosystem, or is there a quality difference? I have only used QNAP NAS devices so I dont know.

QNAP's ecosystem is decent. There is a third party store by a former QNAP employee that has a lot more selection in it.

Getting a lower powered intel celeron QNAP nas basically lets you run anything you want software or app wise, including docker that just works instead of hunting for ARM64 binaries for anything that is not available off the shelf.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#387

Post by Melatonic »

sokoloff wrote: post #248
m000 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF, the picture in TFA only shows rack-mounted Synology devices, where noise is not really a concern. Synologoy SMB/SOHO NAS devices should not be affected by the drive lockdown (for now).

Per the article, it’s all “Plus” models from 2025 on, which definitely includes desktop 2-8 bay units. I have been a happy enough Synology user since 2014, even though I had to hardware repair my main DS1815+ twice in that time (Intel CPU bug and ATX power-on transistor replacement). Other than two hardware failures in 10 years (not good), the experience was great, including two easy storage expansions and the replac…

So basically buy one of the older models now ?

Will new firmware updates to everything before this require the Synology branded drives ?

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#388

Post by j45 »

razakel wrote: post #171
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…

>kept a list of drives to avoid based on user experience Well, that sounds like a great way to get sued.

How would it be a great way to get sued?

Backblaze publishes a great report.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-202...

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#389

Post by j45 »

franga2000 wrote: post #186
razakel wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>kept a list of drives to avoid based on user experience Well, that sounds like a great way to get sued.

On what grounds exactly? You tested something, it turned out to perform below average, so you say you don't recommend buying it. Where's the crime?

There's no reason to be scared to share your experience with hardware.

Re: Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

#390

Post by j45 »

jjcob wrote: post #183

There is one argument for Synology doing this: There have been cases where hard drive companies mislead their customers. I personally fell victim to this when Western Digital started selling SMR drives as WD Red, without labelling them as SMR drives. So lots of customers thought they were buying a drive that's perfect for NAS, only to discover that the drives were completely unsuitable and took days to restore, or fa…

Western Digital misrepresented their Red drives being as suitable for NAS as they advertised, which ended up with them receiving a class action lawsuit against them.

Luckily all of the settings can be searched for and verified.

Seagate and Hitachi have seemed to treat me well over the years and I was giving WD a chance.

Next drives to buy will be from this list: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-202...

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