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Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

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Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#461

Post by crtasm »

eecc wrote: post #178
8fingerlouie wrote: post #162

The decision to restrict 3rd party harddrives may be part of the reason why sales (allegedly) plummet, but i'm guessing lack of innovation also plays a big part. Synology has been resting on the laurels for years. They had a "hit" with DSM 6, then did mostly nothing for a decade, released DSM 7, and again, nothing but minor things since. On the hardware side of things, they're mostly still using decade old hardware,…

Oh nice, thanks for mentioning UGREEN. I had a quick look at the website and it looks fairly cheap. I wouldn't trust their software but the base system comes on an MMC, does it mean I can flash it with TrueNAS or Unraid?

Can you run Unraid on MMC? Its licensing is tied to the GUID of a USB stick.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#462

Post by QuiEgo »

al_borland wrote: post #337
rolleiflex wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar, but slightly different story for me. I ended up buying it as an enthusiast ‘Apple-grade’ product where UX was there to do something I would be able to do on my own. Then they got high on their own supply and started to believe they can be as restrictive and up charging as Apple, forgetting that they’re still a product for primarily fairly technical people. Also, for all server needs I’m running a Raspberry P…

> 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…

The nightmare scenario is that Apple locks you out of your Apple ID for some reason.

Luckily, Apple also provides a pretty easy backup path that lets you have a local copy, if you have a Mac and a NAS:

- setup your Mac’s photos app and iCloud to download everything locally

- setup Time Machine backups from your Mac to a NAS

That’s it. You get 3-2-1 (your Mac, iCloud, and your NAS) and can get a copy of your data even if your Apple ID gets locked out.

Standard disclaimer, only the Time Machine copy is a true backup (ex if you delete a file by mistake, only Time Machine can help you restore it; iCloud is a sync, not a backup). That said, for me personally, this scheme (local copy + cloud copy + NAS backup via Time Machine) takes basically 0 work to maintain once setup and gives me peace of mind.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#463

Post by nathan_douglas »

redditor98654 wrote: post #131
Sammi wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have way underpowered cpus compared to what you can get for the same money elsewhere. They're just a bad deal.

Hi there, I was looking to get a NAS that I can just install and not have to worry about maintenance too much and senility was at the top of the list. If not synology what would you suggest?

Synology's fine - even ideal - for that use case. If you want to run Docker containers, run apps for video conversion like Plex, etc, then you'd likely want to consider something with a beefier CPU. For an appliance NAS, Synology's really pretty great.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#464

Post by pdimitar »

reactordev wrote: post #329
pdimitar wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, education, right. I never had interest in the whole GPIO thing but I'll admit life has been pulling me in very different directions, hence this dropped off my radar. Thanks for the reminder. Thing is, I was aiming at servers. I've read many HN comments where people adore a Pi for some reason that I just can't see; they have to install custom kernels, get Pi hats, do some extra cabling, 3D-print cases, mount small…

On a RPi I can control more aspects than I can a mini pc ITX board. I can boot straight to my program. I can write directly to frame buffers. I don’t need Linux. I don’t really need a kernel… Here are some examples of where an RPi outshines a mini-PC (though one can still achieve the same results, just putting the box outside the box): Coffee table Digital Touch map. Weather Station powered by a solar panel and a LiP…

Pretty cool, thank you. Those things have been not on my mind for a while, thanks for the reminder.

I was commenting in the context of why people choose them for servers but I recognize that I did not make that clear.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#465

Post by nathan_douglas »

kstrauser wrote: post #295
saaaaaam wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree! Though to be clear I’m not saying it’s necessarily amazing software - just that a lot of Synology users seem to like it! I was surprised when I was on a Synology subreddit (I think, or maybe the Synology forums) looking for details about upgrading RAM how many people seem really passionate about the various synology apps.

That surprised me, too. A while back they nerfed some feature in Video Station, their IMHO crummy Plex analog. Wow, did people ever get bent! Meanwhile, I didn’t know anyone actually used and liked it. It worked alright but the client apps were/are a giant leap behind alternatives for Plex or Jellyfin. But no, the built-in option seemed to have a league of fans in the Venn overlap of “people who want to stream video…

Weirdly, Audio Station is the best app I've found for streaming podcasts from my Synology (given the quirks of podcast hoarding in practice). Admittedly, I haven't looked in a few years... maybe I should get on that.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#466

Post by gosub100 »

rzwitserloot wrote: post #352
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's an interesting lesson. I think I do get it. This is one of those rare cases where: * This interpreation is understandable: 'this is a ridiculous cash grab, this single act says so much about the attitude of this company that the right answer for consumers is to run for the hills, and for those who work there to start looking for the exit'. * ... but perhaps not: I can totally see it; the cost of the process is m…

To me it's obvious why they initially chose to use validated hardware:

1) the unlabelled SMR debacle a few years ago probably wasted untold amounts of time and caused unwarranted damage to their brand from frustrated people who just paid $1k for their Synology, $1k for drives, and then couldn't build a working array with them, possibly even losing data and productivity in the process.

2) penny pinching cheapskates buying broken hdds on the used market and complaining that "their Synology doesn't work". Or swapping failed drives with garbage and again wasting time of support.

3) they are premium products, not intended for the hobbyist. Their customers generally are willing to spend more in exchange for a premium experience. In order to provide this, especially to less tech savvy people (you know, people who want to actually USE their NAS instead of just tinker with it every day), it made sense to control the quality of the drives.

However the Internet peanut gallery has been so used to being exploited that their scam detectors falsely activated and they all swarmed out of their (neckbeard) nests. So synology has no option than to backtrack and offer free tech support for the bottom quartile of "knows just enough to break it" techies.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#467

Post by reactordev »

somehnguy wrote: post #423
reactordev wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do distributed computing, and doing it at home for low costs without cloud spend helps…

Are virtual machines not an option for your use case? From the outside looking in they appear like they would be easier to manage and far less costly.

They are if the GPU can be attached. I avoid virtual machines in favor of container workloads from containerd for this reason. It’s easier to attach Mali GPU and do my work than it is to find cash in this economy for a dozen RTX’s.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#468

Post by notnmeyer »

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?

they’re pretty clearly referring to _their_ use case and not everyone’s. i think people are mostly talking past each other about this. there isn’t one feature set that matters for everyone, so of course a synology is perfect for some and for others it can be replaced with “junk”.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#469

Post by kijin »

makeitdouble wrote: post #333
behnamoh wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, do you know of examples of companies that lost their best engineers despite reversing course on a shitty policy? My understanding is that people want to pay the bills, and esp. in this economy, most prefer to have a job rather than searching for a new one. That ofc is different for the more senior engineers who are in demand, but the junior ones will probably still stick around despite the management's p…

There is a time span between the policy is comitted internally and the time that policy is reverted. In Synology's case it's probably more than half a year, in other companies it could take a full year or more to reverse course. Half a year is plenty enough to move away. Of course people don't like looking for a new job, but they don't like shitty leadership either. And speaking of paying the bills, you won't get muc…

At the very least, some people who otherwise wouldn't have actively looked for other opportunities might start doing so. This can have consequences several months down the road, even if they don't quit immediately.

Re: Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs

#470

Post by ryandrake »

crote wrote: post #425
ryandrake wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most LSI adapters you can get a battery backup for. I've got one on mine, plus a spare battery sitting on a shelf somewhere. I admit when I put the system together for the first time I was a little hesitant to go with hardware RAID but it's worked out fine so far.

I reckon the issue is more in replacement than transient data loss: what are you going to do when you can't find a replacement controller card, or it only available at ludicrous prices? With a proprietary on-disk format you can't exactly hook them up to any random controller and expect it to work: either you find a new one from the same controller family, or your data is gone .

Replacing your RAID controller is already major maintenance, so there's going to be downtime. I wouldn't be opposed to just wiping the drives and restoring from the latest backup. I routinely do this anyway, just to have assurance that my backups are working.
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