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Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

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Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#411

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

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…

> it also severely impacts internal morale.

I worked for a game developer that went through a stretch of unpopular decisions with the community and it definitely upset me in both my role as a player and as an employee.

The second time I worked for a developer whose game I played I'd learned to compartmentalize and things went smoother.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#412

Post by toomuchtodo »

Aurornis wrote: post #371
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…

> What is interesting here is that Synology leadership is quite technical Vagueposting out of necessity: I worked at a different company that made popular consumer products and had leadership with technical backgrounds. That company also went through a period of trying to lock down the platform for profits, which everyone hated. The root cause was that the technical leadership had started to think two things: That th…

Do you think more employee ownership and control, a "seat at the table," would've prevented technically competent leadership from testing customer hostile business decisions?

> Regarding employee morale: It was very depressing for me during this period to open Hacker News and see threads complaining about my employer. I can confirm that it spurred a job search for me.

Indeed. I believe that if you're a shareholder employee owner, you are likely incentivized to not kill the golden goose versus folks at the top making decisions unilaterally, but you also need some ability to say no to bad decisions. Like Costco, employee and customer happiness first, profits after.

(big fan of employee ownership and control contributors, aligning incentives and outcomes and all that jazz)

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#413

Post by ryandrake »

mlrtime wrote: post #172
Shank wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A significant part of the prosumer NAS market isn’t running these for storage exclusively. They usually want a media server like Plex or Enby or Jellyfin at minimum and maybe a handful of other apps. It would be better to articulate this market demand as for low power application servers, not strictly storage appliances.

I used to like synology for that, but now I just want a NAS with NAS things on it that supports the latest technology. As soon as my Synology dies I'm replacing it with Unifi. I don't want all that extra software with constant CVEs to patch.

Simplification is the key. My setup went from: Custom NAS hardware running vendor-provided OS and heavyweight media serving software -> Custom NAS hardware running TrueNAS + heavyweight media server -> Custom NAS hardware running Linux + NFS -> Old Junker Dell running Linux + NFS. You keep finding bells and whistles you just don't need and all they do is add complexity to your life.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#414

Post by AnotherGoodName »

reactordev wrote: post #245
pdimitar wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why people love Pi-s so much. They filled a niche, once, years ago, and were quickly outcompeted not even a year and a half after. Get some old i7 or Ryzen, get a big case, put 12-18 HDDs, spend a little extra on quality cooling solution if you have the server in your bedroom / living room, install modern Linux, tinker to your heart's content.

Because for $40 I have a system that runs at a decent speed. For $300 I could get an ITX to run. So for the cost of an ITX, I could run a dozen RPIs. Who wants to have a server running in their bedroom? Have you heard the noise those things make? Sorry, no.

You’re running the pi and drives in a plastic take away container off usb power for that price.

At the very least you want the case and psu. At which point the question is which cpu+motherboard+ram combo do you want in that case. The rpi is one of many such options and is actually quite expensive for the amount of cpu+ram you get for the price.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#415

Post by dagmx »

bitdivision wrote: post #392
al_borland wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just pay Apple for iCloud monthly, I consider that to be money well spent. I use iCloud Photos for my photos, so I don’t have to manage storage on my phone, while always having access to everything. I quite like it. I also have a Synology NAS for other things. A little voice in the back of my mind is telling me to also backup my photos to the NAS, because I have no idea how Apple is backing things up. I might be…

They did have a bug that corrupted images on import I think? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45274277 So maybe don't fully trust it.

You’re talking about completely different aspects of the product though?

The second top level comment also suggests that this the cameras manual suggests the camera itself might be corrupting things.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#416

Post by Hikikomori »

croon wrote: post #207
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.

I've always opted for building my own and running linux every time it has come down to replacing, but I might split out NAS and compute this time and take a chance on a UGREEN one (maybe DH4300?), the reviews look solid for a new product segment from them. I'm likely not buying a Synology at this point. If anyone has one of their (UGREEN) models (or other brands) I'd be interested in hearing perspectives. Edit: A lot…

I bought a Terramaster DAS as I already had a NUC, just connected with USB, supports 10Gbit but my NUC only does 5.

Looked a lot at NAS alternatives and ugreen, asustor, aoostar all seem pretty good, as you can just run truenas or a linux distro. Can also do DIY chassi with mini itx board.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#417

Post by dheera »

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…

The ship has sailed. I'm eyeing the Unifi UNAS 8 which ships this month.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#418

Post by qzw »

fortran77 wrote: post #339
mapontosevenths wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My story is similar. I've been using them for a decade, and was shopping for an upgrade when they made the proprietary drive announcmement. It was the impetus I needed to realize that it only takes an hour to build my own, better, NAS out of junk I mostly already owned and save a ton of money. I won't be going back.

You can build a little hot-swappable NAS with nice trays to slide disks in and out, an easy web GUI, front panel status lights, support for applications like surveillance cameras, etc, with junk you mostly already owned?

Well, one man's junk is another man's treasure.

In any case, none of the requirements you listed seem that exotic. There are computer cases with hot-swap ready drive cages, and status lights (or even LCDs) are easy to find. The software is probably already on github. The toughest ask is probably for it to be "little", but that's not something everybody cares about. So I don't find the GP's claim to be that much of a stretch.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#419

Post by caconym_ »

throwaway173738 wrote: post #314
dangus wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to put this is that Synology misjudged their customers' appetite for alternatives. The ease of use of the Synology solution was always a plus of the product, but Synology misjudged the values and abilities of its core customer. They also misjudged the rapidly maturing market of competitors (e.g., why am I buying a Synology instead of UGREEN?) Their core customer always had the ability to set up their own…

I can confirm that I bought a Synology NAS because I didn’t want to tinker with the backup system for my family’s data. And when I read about the drive requirements for a new Synology NAS I decided that tinkering might not be such a bad thing. They really screwed up.

Same. I like my Synology unit well enough but I see a trend toward less openness, toward greed (including removing capabilities from units they've already sold) and toward a decline of their business as a result of tanking customer goodwill. So they no longer seem like a reliable bet for the long term, which is what I'm looking for in a NAS.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#420

Post by CharlesW »

sixothree wrote: post #360
leokennis wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's hard to find any other products that compare to DSM. It really is something special. It's worth a small premium in hardware costs. But I share a lot of the concerns as everyone else here and will be considering other options.

> It's hard to find any other products that compare to DSM.

A friend has a Synology NAS and I have a QNAP NAS. In my experience, QNAP's QTS (QuTS Hero if you want ZFS) is directly comparable.

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