[Renaud]

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 important folders to cloud, and it was also doing automated torrent downloads of TV series.

These apps, and more (like family photos, video server, etc), make the NAS a true hub for everything data-related, not just for storing local files.

I can understand Synology going this way, it puts more money in their pocket, and as a customer in professional environment, I'm ok to pay a premium for their approved drives if it gives me an additional level of warranty and (perceived) safety.

But enforcing this accross models used by home or soho users is dumb and will affect the good will of so many like me, who both used to buy Synology for home and were also recommending/purchasing the brand at work.

This is a tech product, don't destroy your tech fanbase.

I would rather Synology kept a list of drives to avoid based on user experience, and offer their Synology-specific drives with a generous warranty for pro environments. Hel, I would be ok with sharing stats about drive performance so they could build a useful database for all.

They way they reduce the performance of their system to penalise non-synology rebranded drives is bascially a slap in the face of their customers. Make it a setting and let the user choose to use the NAS their bought to its full capabilities.

[sersi]

On the other had, they have also slowly destroyed their app ecosystem. The photo solution is much worse than it used to be both in terms of features and the now removed support for media codecs. Video station has pretty much been dead for years.

At this point, I'm not that convinced that there's anything that synology offers that isn't handled much better by an app running on docker. This wasn't true 10 years ago.

[nolok]

The photo apps is great because their photo backup app on android is great, and the only thing that works as well as google photo to ensure all your photo and videos are saved, untouched, no duplicate, no missed media.

That's it. For the actual viewing / sorting / album you need something like immich or photoprism, the photos app actually sucks.

Video station has been removed in the latest minor update, not even a major update, they just took it out no warning no replacement. But then again it was not that good, jellyfin is the way to go for me.

Their crown jewels are active backup, hyper backup and synology office. That's where they own their space.

[qsi]

This is sad... I've been using Synology for a very long time (over 15 years?) and have been pretty happy with my experience. The one time I needed their tech support also left me with a good impression...

This however is a deal breaker for me as I'd hate to be locked in to their drives for all the reasons in TFA but also as a matter of principle.

I hope Synology will reconsider!

[InsideOutSanta]

Yeah, same. I have had three Synology boxes over the last 20 or so years, and they have been super reliable, easy to use, and easy to update. The last one is important to me because I would, over time, add more disks and, when the drive bays were all full, replace smaller disks with larger ones.

The first one I bought is still in service at my parents' place, silently and reliably backing up their cloud files and laptops.

I was fully expecting to buy more in the future, but this is a dealbreaker. If a disk goes bad, I want to go to the local store, pick one up, and have the problem fixed half an hour later. I do not want to figure out where I can get approved disks, what sizes are available, how long it will take to ship them, etc.

I've recently installed Unraid on an old PC, and the experience has been surprisingly good. It's not as nice as a Synology, but it's not difficult, either. It's just a bit more work. I've also heard that HexOS plans to support heterogeneous disks, and I plan to check it out once that is available.

So that's the direction I'll be going in instead.

[apetrovic]

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 (drive by drive). I don't use much of their apps (mostly download station, backup, and their version of Docker to run Syncthing, plus Tailscale). But the box acts like an appliance - I basically don't need to maintain it at all; it just works.

I don't like all this stuff with vendor lock-in, so when the time comes for replacing the box, what are alternatives on par with the experience and quality I currently have with Synology?

[sersi]

The problem is that a lot of competitors don't necessarily have great software. For example QNAP on the hardware side is supposed to be good, you have more bang for the bucks in term of performance but they had several major CVEs that really call into question their security practices. I have a friend who is running Unraid on QNAP and is happy though.

[tiew9Vii]

The new Chinese NAS's due to hit the market look extremely promising.

- Minisforum N5 Pro NAS

- AOOSTAR WTR MAX

Good compute power as they know users will be running Docker and other services on them, using the NAS as a mini server.

OS agnostic allowing users to install TrueNas, Unraid, favourite Linus distro of choice.

The Minisforum and AOOSTAR look to be adding all the features power users and enthusiasts are asking for.

If you just want a NAS as a NAS and nothing else, the new Ubiquiti NAS looks great value as well.

[adam_th]

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

[Scene_Cast2]

I have an old Helios4 board. Too bad they don't make them anymore - it's tiny, has ECC, and was purpose built to be a NAS.

[kxrm]

Kind of surprising, I went the other way. I started out with ReadyNAS 15 years ago and after that product faded due to lack of support I no longer wanted to be tied down to a manufacturer. I built a custom solution using a U-Nas chassis. Found FreeNAS back in the day and have stuck with it ever since. Maintenance is fairly minimal.

If you heavily rely on apps/services. I've just gone to self managed docker environments for things like that. A very simple script runs updates.

[j45]

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.

[hjgjhyuhy]

Apart from the form factor, my custom built machine with Unraid pretty much works like what you describe. Soon two years of use without major issues.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

I have WD MyCloud NAS. It has Transmission to pirate movies and Twonky DLNA server to send them to my TVs. Not much, but honest work.

[m4rtink]

Some Intel N100/N105 board from Aliexpress with Fedora or Debian on top should be fine & much more flexible if you decided you want more than just a file server.

[dsego]

Anecdotally, I quickly gave up on their value-add apps, they didn't seem well thought out and had many missing features. My impression was that they were mostly there to tick all the boxes for their marketing material. It's been a few years since I looked at them so I can't give specific examples unfortunately.

[jjkaczor]

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 whole purpose of having a RAID NAS is safe reliable data storage)

May check-out a custom hardware build, combined with Xpenology.

[j45]

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).

[ycombinatrix]

Fwiw I don't use a single one of their apps. I bought it for their hybrid raid feature.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Same here.

At one time, Drobo was the only manufacturer that did that, but I have had very bad luck with Drobos.

I’ve been running a couple of Synology DS cages for over five years, with no issues.

[shantara]

I’m running two Synology NAS devices, and I wouldn’t consider their app ecosystem to be their strong point. I started by trying to take advantage of the built-in Synology apps when I first got my NAS, but quickly realized how limited they are. Their bi-directional synchronization solution is so slow and archaic compared Syncthing! And the same is true for most of their software offerings. At this point, I’m happy with having Docker support, and don’t particularly care about the rest of their apps.

I still appreciate how easy and maintenance-free was their implementation of the core NAS functionality. I do have a Linux desktop for experiments and playing around with, but I prefer to have all of my actually important data to be on a separate rock solid device. Previously, Synology fulfilled this role and was worth paying for, but if this policy goes live, I wouldn’t consider them fro my next NAS.

[InsideOutSanta]

I would count supported third-party apps like SyncThing as part of the app ecosystem. You can add the SynoCommunity repository to your Synology and install SyncThing directly, which is pretty nice.

It's a bit more convenient than how other solutions, like Unraid, handle this, where you manually configure a Docker container.

[op00to]

Agree. Have a few Synologies and the apps are crap ware.

[HenriTEL]

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.

[j45]

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.

[nerdjon]

How much of a market is there really for those apps? They are competing against most consumers accepting the ease (and significantly cheaper) of cloud based storage.

We (in the tech space) can scream privacy and risks of the cloud all day long but most consumers seem to just not care.

I have 2 Synology NAS and the only app that I actually use is Synology Drive thanks to the sync app, but there are open source alternatives that would work better and not require a client on the NAS side to work.

I can't imagine any enterprise would be using these features.

Been in the market for a new NAS myself and I am going to be looking into truenas or keep an eye on what Ubiquity is doing in this space (but its a no go until they add the ability to communicate with a UPS).

[bluGill]

Without the apps they have even less market though.

[j45]

Other manufacturers like Qnap also have this app ecosystem.

It doesn’t address the mandatory nature of drives when at most dell and hp have put their part number on drives for the most part.

[lazide]

The issue is QNAP has terrible quality/stability at the OS level compared to Synology (also with Apps).

The number of times I’ve broken things on QNAP systems doing what should be normal functionality, only to find out it’s because of some dumb implementation detail is over a dozen. Synology, maybe 1-2.

Roughly the same number of systems/time in use too.

[freeAgent]

As far as lists of drives to avoid, Synology could certainly do that, but we also already have Backblaze’s reports on their own failure rates. Synology also uses multiple vendors to produce “Synology” branded drives, so as the article states this may also lead to confusion about which Synology branded drives are “good” vs. “bad” in the future, even with seemingly identical specs.

[op00to]

The idea is not so much about which drives fail or whatever. It’s more that certain consumer drives have firmwares that don’t work well with NAS workloads. Long timeouts could be treated as a failed drive rather than a transient error by a desktop drive, for example.

[m463]

Maybe this will backfire like the keurig DRM coffee pods?

https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/5/7986327/keurigs-attempt-to...

[razakel]

>kept a list of drives to avoid based on user experience

Well, that sounds like a great way to get sued.

[franga2000]

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?

[bambax]

Just do it in reverse: a list of drives that they have tested and can confirm work well; at the end of the list they just mention that they cannot recommend any other.

[j45]

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...

[msh]

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.

[j45]

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.

[doanchu]

TrueNAS can do all those stuff for you.

[coolgoose]

No it can't. Let's be honest Synology's OS is covering more than just storage, and no, spinning up a lot of 3'rd party docker containers that you need to maintain, secure and manage isn't as easy.

[NexRebular]

Or OmniOS with Napp-It