Synology May Punish You for Buying Third-Party Hard Drives

Synology confirms that its upcoming Plus-series NAS devices volition restrict immoderate bundle functionality if you neglect to usage approved hard drives. This alteration does not impact older Plus-series hardware.

The institution announced its caller thrust validation requirements successful a press release connected April 16th and aboriginal discussed the argumentation with Ars Technica.

According to Synology's property release, customers who usage an incompatible thrust successful a 2025 Plus-series NAS "will beryllium taxable to definite restrictions … specified arsenic the instauration of pools." Plus, "volume-wide deduplication, lifespan analysis, and automatic firmware updates of hard disks volition lone beryllium disposable for Synology hard disks." Most of these features are unimportant to the mean user, but thrust excavation instauration is captious to record information and NAS performance.

Synology hasn't clarified however it volition restrict thrust excavation creation. If the institution is talking astir thing minor, similar a proprietary RAID strategy that requires "approved" drives, past this truly isn't a large deal. Hell, possibly determination won't beryllium immoderate existent restrictions—this could simply beryllium a lawsuit of "we won't assistance you troubleshoot random hard drives." But if the institution places a paywall connected basal pooling functionality, customers are close to beryllium outraged.

"Synology-branded drives volition beryllium needed for usage successful the recently announced Plus series, with plans to update the Product Compatibility List arsenic further drives tin beryllium thoroughly vetted successful Synology systems … Extensive interior investigating has shown that drives that travel a rigorous validation process erstwhile paired with Synology systems are astatine little hazard of thrust nonaccomplishment and ongoing compatibility issues." - Synology via Ars Technica

For what it's worth, these kinds of restrictions aren't antithetic successful the enterprise-grade server market. Large SAN solutions, including those from Synology, often necessitate "compatible" drives that person been vetted for firmware and thermal performance—these requirements promote vendor lock-in and marque hardware warranties much restrictive, but they besides service a applicable purpose: enterprise-grade servers whitethorn usage precocious features (like proprietary RAID implementations oregon mistake betterment systems) that don’t enactment decently with off-the-shelf drives. Plus, thrust manufacturers that are connected a server vendor's "compatibility" database whitethorn beryllium contractually obligated to supply timely HDD firmware updates that resoluteness captious bugs oregon information flaws—enterprise customers payment from this scheme.

But I'm struggling to recognize however thrust restrictions volition payment the mean consumer. Synology says that its thrust compatibility mandate volition summation customers' information information and supply much reliable bundle functionality—if so, the institution needs to beryllium it oregon connection immoderate unsocial functionality arsenic an inducement for approved thrust usage. Synology should besides instrumentality the clip to explicate however retention pools volition beryllium affected by "incompatible" drives, since that's what astir customers are acrophobic about.

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To reiterate, these hard thrust restrictions lone interaction the 2025 lineup of Synology Plus NAS devices. Older units successful the Plus series, arsenic good arsenic caller models successful the J and Values families, are not affected. Curiously, Synology says that unsupported drives utilized successful older Plus-series NAS devices tin beryllium migrated to 2025 models without issue.

Other consumer-grade NAS brands bash not spot bundle restrictions connected thrust usage, though they whitethorn urge oregon garbage to troubleshoot definite models of HDD. If you privation to debar a NAS brand's bundle restrictions, loading up an alternative operating system similar Unraid, TrueNAS Scale, oregon OpenMediaVault is usually the champion mode to bash so. Booting into an alternate OS shouldn't void your hardware warranty (check the warranty first), though NAS manfuacturers usually won't supply lawsuit enactment for third-party software.

Source: Synology via Ars Technica