The delights of Synology

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Networkn
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#3371044 7-May-2025 09:50

Having found out a little more about the certification program, I have strong reservations about the motivations for this. I don't love this direction, hopefully, with feedback, they will adjust course. We will see.

Given how many horrible vulns in some of the other mentioned brands above, I'd still buy Synology because their CVE Disclosure and speed in which they patch, has been good in the 15 years we have been buying and selling Synology.

As an MSP, it gives me reasonable piece of mind.

reven

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#3371046 7-May-2025 10:05

I think geekzoners would be the target market. Enterprise would use something more entripisey, 45 bay or cloud.

Small/medium businesses, cloud and sure maybe synology. But if using unifi gear which is popular in this space, UNAS Pro would be a good option here.

Home users, they dont have a NAS

Nerds, have a NAS.

I do have a couple of users using synology and a few others on qnap. But vast majority are unRAID or TrueNAS for their NAS.

Personally I'm wanting just a NAS, so looking at UNAS Pro, just no stock in NZ.

KiwiSurfer

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#3371226 7-May-2025 15:15

I've always been wary of using companies that sell their own branded stuff where it's clearly just them slapping a label on top of some mass-produced product with zero extra QA (other than their word which doesn't always translate to action). Given it is very easy for me to set up a FreeBSD box with ZFS and standard HDD/SDDs, I'm not sure it's worth the extra cost and extra hassle going down a route where a company can lock you into specific hardware. Synology probably only useful if you're willing to pay for a ready-made solution so I agree with the assessment it may not be of interest to Geekzone membrs for their home labs -- although some might consider it for their workplaces etc where a supported paid solution does make sense.

Handle9

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#3371229 7-May-2025 15:21

networkn:

There is very little on the market with the polish and support of Synology. You'll pay more for that.

Of course, like in anything, you can save money by giving up your time. 'Most' people (and this excludes many people on GZ) want something plug and play as they either lack the time and inclination or expertise, to use something cheaper, but ultimately more complex.

Geekzone users aren't the target audience for Synology though I'd never roll my own despite having the expertise to do so, as I'd rather spend my time doing something else.

Horses for courses.

I don't think there have been many complaints about Synology charging what they do. They aren't cheap but you are buying a very well developed and polished ecosystem.

The objections about this is the naked cash grab. They white label OEM drives, there is nothing special about their drives.

freitasm

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#3371234 7-May-2025 15:58

I agree with some of your views, so I will just posted here to clarify which ones...

I agree the platform may not be for the hobbyist/enthusiast/homelab owner, mainly because of the cost. The small business line is a well-rounded product, with great software (SHR storage is ahead of RAID in terms of flexibility) and reliability. These are features the SMB market is ok paying for.

Using their tested drives reduces support cost and places more value on warranty claims. Again, features the SMB market is ok paying for.

Enthusiast users will be happy playing with DIY solutions - as many mentioned in this thread. The cost difference between a Synology solution and a TrueNAS implementation was already substantial enough to make home users drift in the direction of an open source platform.

This move wouldn't change users who see value in the platform, and won't sway users who had already planned to move towards a different hardware.

I personally would love to see WD Red drives in the approved list. They were fine before on my DS923+ and they are now marked as "Migrated" on my DS925+. I know if one of these drives fail I can only replace with a Synology-branded one. And I have already been looking at prices. I use the NAS for many things but also as a backup solution and the data in there is valuable enough to me that I wouldn't trust a home made solution that could break at any time because of something stupid I did.

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Handle9

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#3371243 7-May-2025 17:16

freitasm:

This move wouldn't change users who see value in the platform, and won't sway users who had already planned to move towards a different hardware.

I disagree. Previously I’ve recommended Synology for people who wanted an appliance. The hardware is a bit pricey but storage was no more expensive so overall you didn’t really pay a huge amount more for the overall solution.

Now with them actively locking out third party storage and no clear path to third party drives being certified I wouldn’t recommend them to new users. The risk is just too great when they start down this track.

It’s one of the reasons I bought a HexOs license when they launched. A NAS OS for normal users that is decoupled from the hardware is a really important project to have available.

The amount of really nice hardware being released that actively supports third party OS is actually quite exciting and this move by Synology will probably make them more attractive.

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kiwifidget

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#3371245 7-May-2025 17:31

Handle9:

The amount of really nice hardware being released that actively supports third party OS is actually quite exciting and this move by Synology will probably make them more attractive.

Tell me more please.

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Handle9

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#3371246 7-May-2025 18:04

kiwifidget:

Handle9:

The amount of really nice hardware being released that actively supports third party OS is actually quite exciting and this move by Synology will probably make them more attractive.

Tell me more please.

Ugreen is the big one that released in the last year or so. They have a really nice range which allows you to install a third party OS without invalidating your warranty. They have their own relatively immature OS as well.

There is also a big range of Chinese vendors releasing NAS. Aoostar have a range of really interesting devices, Minisforum are releasing a the N5 and N5 Pro and there are lots of others coming to market.

freitasm

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#3371248 7-May-2025 18:20

Handle9:

freitasm:

This move wouldn't change users who see value in the platform, and won't sway users who had already planned to move towards a different hardware.

I disagree. Previously I’ve recommended Synology for people who wanted an appliance. The hardware is a bit pricey but storage was no more expensive so overall you didn’t really pay a huge amount more for the overall solution.

Now with them actively locking out third party storage and no clear path to third party drives being certified I wouldn’t recommend them to new users. The risk is just too great when they start down this track.

It’s one of the reasons I bought a HexOs license when they launched. A NAS OS for normal users that is decoupled from the hardware is a really important project to have available.

The amount of really nice hardware being released that actively supports third party OS is actually quite exciting and this move by Synology will probably make them more attractive.

It sounds good. I, on the other hand, think the apps I use—full image backup (Active Backup), cloud services backup (Active Backup for Google Workspace, Active Backup for Microsoft 365), cloud storage backup (Cloud Sync Google Drive/OneDrive) and backup from NAS to cloud (Hyper Backup)—are so well integrated and Just Work™️out of the box that it's a good justification to not muck around. As I said, data is valuable and time is scarce.

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reven

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#3371338 8-May-2025 11:05

So clearly given this discussion, it will put some users off, some users wont care.

I bet they reverse it at some point or open it up a lot.

Tinkerisk

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#3374749 19-May-2025 19:34

Tinkerisk:

I have never installed proxmox and/or Nextcloud on as many Ugreen or Qnap NAS as I currently have. And they even work! 😉

For all those for whom Nextcloud has too many functions and seems too complex. I can recommend OpenCloud, an EU open source fork of OwnCloud Scale and already easy to use for private users, without unnecessary ballast. You should install it with Docker Compose to be able to use it with Collabora or OnlyOffice and other extension options. It is also slightly more responsive than Nextcloud.

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rb99

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#3388921 2-Jul-2025 09:05

Ok, I've posted stuff like this before which turned out to be wrong, so hopefully this is as well -

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/synology-starts-selling-overpriced-1-6-tb-ssds-for-usd535-self-branded-archaic-pcie-3-0-ssds-the-only-option-to-meet-certified-criteria

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richms

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#3388986 2-Jul-2025 10:53

How bad is the pricing here compared to overseas? We get reamed on storage costs and availability from the big 2 here, is synology equally badly marked up or is it more on par with the global pricing?

Richard rich.ms

freitasm

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#3389002 2-Jul-2025 11:28

I'm not sure about the SSD, but the HDD seem to be comparable - just check PB Tech and NewEgg.

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#3389004 2-Jul-2025 11:45

richms:

How bad is the pricing here compared to overseas? We get reamed on storage costs and availability from the big 2 here, is synology equally badly marked up or is it more on par with the global pricing?

I got a Synology DS423+ With 2X Synology 3310 Series 8TB NAS HDD Bundle from PB last year - IIRC it was within 30-40 of buying 3rd party drives.

Their SSDs were super expensive, so I got 3rd party ones. There are scripts out there that make the Synology think they are supported so you can use them as a storage pool. Was all pretty easy.

Would I do that for a business? No. For me/homelab its fine.

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