Synology is selling outdated "proprietary" NAS SSDs at unrealistically high prices

[Alfonso Maruccia]

WTF?! Synology recently introduced a new compatibility policy governing the drives that customers can install in some of its network-attached storage appliances. Select NAS products now only support specific Synology-branded drives, and the company appears eager to capture significant profit margins on what are, in many cases, relatively low-spec components.

Synology recently started selling a new line of branded NVMe SSDs designed to "supercharge" its latest DiskStation Manager NAS models. The SNV5420 series comes in three capacities, with the 1.6TB model currently listed at a hefty $535. Despite the price, the SSD's specifications are significantly outdated, though Synology claims the drives are optimized for data-intensive environments.

The SNV5420 offers sequential read speeds of up to 3,000 MB/s and "sustained" sequential write speeds of up to 1,000 MB/s. These are standard PCIe 3.0 speeds – unimpressive in a market that is rapidly shifting toward PCIe 5.0. Even more concerning is the 1.6TB model's endurance rating: just 2,900 TBW and 3 million hours MTBF, which falls short compared to many cheaper, higher-performance SSDs on the market.

Synology states that the SNV5420 series has undergone extensive validation for use in DSM NAS appliances. The drives' firmware and components have been tightly controlled, stress-tested, and vetted to meet the "high" quality and reliability standards set by the company.

Earlier this year, Synology began requiring customers to use its branded HDDs and SSDs in select NAS models, claiming the change would deliver improved performance, reliability, and compatibility. However, the newly introduced SNV5420 SSD series reinforces criticism that the company is attempting to overcharge users by selling older hardware with increasingly outdated specifications.

Fortunately, customers still have alternatives. Most other NAS manufacturers do not impose such restrictions on the types of drives users can install. Even Synology's own latest DSM units can be configured to accept "non-compatible" drives, as detailed by German tech site ComputerBase.

Drive compatibility in Synology NAS systems is enforced via a locally stored database. Users can bypass this restriction by running an open-source script that allows them to whitelist unsupported drives. The script also offers additional features such as disabling automatic database updates and suppressing compatibility warnings for older WD drives.

While Synology insists that customers should now rely on its proprietary ecosystem of certified storage media, the company does not manufacture these drives itself. Instead, it rebrands products sourced from established third-party vendors like Toshiba and Seagate.

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Synology is selling outdated "proprietary" NAS SSDs at unrealistically high prices

 

[VitalyT]

They were looking for a fresh outlook for the company, and they found it, unique in every way, hiking prices to the sky, for the old skeletons on display.

No other company has done it, Synology is once again an innovator.

 

[noel24]

From everything I've read about them, They are in the middle of the FAFO stage. Basically a fire sale at this point. Just check who owns majority stakes in Them, the chance is It's BlackRock, Vanguard or some other leaches That decided to squize established names to oblivion. After COVID It happens to all brands around. Future looks bleak and has a face of Xi Jinping, as Chinese will take over.

 

[brucek]

I agree sounds like private equity or some other change in business direction to extract short term profit at the expense of ongoing reputation.

re: "Vanguard" - I'm familiar with them in their capacity as mutual funds, ETFs, index funds, etc. none of which at least traditionally involved them dictating operational business strategy. Do you have a source for Vanguard doing this now?

 

[Gars]

Once a symbol of quality and performance,
now it's about high prices and everything without the above mentioned

 

[Thatsdisgusting]

I agree sounds like private equity or some other change in business direction to extract short term profit at the expense of ongoing reputation.

re: "Vanguard" - I'm familiar with them in their capacity as mutual funds, ETFs, index funds, etc. none of which at least traditionally involved them dictating operational business strategy. Do you have a source for Vanguard doing this now?

Vanuard is Umbrella, or Tyrell, or Weyland-Yutani or Arasaka if you wish, of our time-frame

 

[Squid Surprise]

Might have to fact check some of this… first of all, you do NOT have to use Synology brand hard drives in any of their NAS offerings. SOME NAS devices simply only list those as recommended / supported… Seagate, WD, etc work perfectly fine in all of them.
Are the NVMe drives a ripoff? Probably… but again, “name” brand drives will also work fine…

 

[brucek]

Vanuard is Umbrella, or Tyrell, or Weyland-Yutani or Arasaka if you wish, of our time-frame

I've seen this meme a few times now and am trying to find out where it comes from. Vanguard is not like a Berkshire Hathaway that owns controlling interests and makes operating decision (and even Berkshire/Buffett is mostly hands off.) Their biggest function is making it possible for small investors to efficiently spread their investment portfolio over dozens, hundreds, or thousands of different investments at very high cost efficiency (often less than 1/10 of 1%.) To my knowledge they do not own, control, or seek to change the direction of any of those investments.

 

[brucek]

Might have to fact check some of this… first of all, you do NOT have to use Synology brand hard drives in any of their NAS offerings. SOME NAS devices simply only list those as recommended / supported… Seagate, WD, etc work perfectly fine in all of them.
Are the NVMe drives a ripoff? Probably… but again, “name” brand drives will also work fine…

That's how it used to be. All the recent negative attention stems from their announcement that will no longer be possible in their new offerings (not sure if that's all or some.)

 

[NumberNine]

They're using enterprise tactics on consumer hardware. A page straight from the playbooks of HP, among others.

I hear Buffalo's offerings are pretty good.

 

[Squid Surprise]

That's how it used to be. All the recent negative attention stems from their announcement that will no longer be possible in their new offerings (not sure if that's all or some.)

That’s not what their announcement said though… it said hard drives must be compatible for certain features but those drives will not only be sold by Synology (but obviously they will recommend those). There will be drives verified by Synology on a case by case basis if they pass Synology’s “stringent” standards… and pretty much any drive will “work” even if not officially supported…

Not exactly customer-friendly, but not the “what are they thinking” click bait title we got…

 

[daffy duck]

Best thing I ever did was junk Synology and go back to QNAP.

 

[wiak]

/me pets his Jonsbo N3 Enclosed Ubuntu ZFS NAS Box with a bunch off bring your own disks

 

[rmcrys]

From everything I've read about them, They are in the middle of the FAFO stage. Basically a fire sale at this point. Just check who owns majority stakes in Them, the chance is It's BlackRock, Vanguard or some other leaches That decided to squize established names to oblivion. After COVID It happens to all brands around. Future looks bleak and has a face of Xi Jinping, as Chinese will take over.

Don't worry, the Americans are expert doing takeovers, buying companies, ripping them apart and selling them in pieces, sending people home. Or going to other counties and make price speculation. Everything as long as they can make money. So... why would people care what others do to them? I don't.

 

[mbk34]

Best thing I ever did was junk Synology and go back to QNAP.

I've been using QNAP for years and not looking to change any time soon.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Don't worry, the Americans are expert doing takeovers, buying companies, ripping them apart and selling them in pieces, sending people home. Or going to other counties and make price speculation. Everything as long as they can make money. So... why would people care what others do to them? I don't.

#owtheedge

I've been using QNAP for years and not looking to change any time soon.

I went with Asustor originally, but I'm thinking of going Terramaster, that new M.2 NAS they have looks pretty sweet.

 

[madboyv1]

/me pets his Jonsbo N3 Enclosed Ubuntu ZFS NAS Box with a bunch off bring your own disks

Ooh thanks for mentioning that case/enclosure, I've been thinking about how I just inherited a ton of high capacity drives that I need a new home for...

 

[dangh]

Asustor flashtor for me. If there will be no competition I'll put together some old xeon stack. I won't trust a company which uses their position against customers.

 

[adamada72]

Well. I guess no upgrade path for me now with them. When that time comes if this is still their policy QNAP is an option.

 

[bviktor]

Branded disks have ALWAYS been overpriced proprietary cr@p. They mish-mash a couple of bits to ensure exclusivity, and that's it.

That's why you stay away from proprietary cr@p.

 

[ZedRM]

So Synology has made themselves into a "has-been" company in a single year? No big loss. Someone else will take their place and will do better.

 

[lonetac]

Looking to buy a NAS actually. Its on my list. Thanks for the reco's.

 

[RaXelliX]

NAS is a scam regardless of the manufacturer. It's essentially off the shelf hardware running some software. I can build my own NAS for far cheaper and with much more powerful hardware for the price these companies are asking. And yes I get the prebuilt argument but cmon. Even PC SI's dont charge so much for assembly and support as NAS sellers do despite the fact that PC's are far more complex that a storage server.

 

[brucek]

NAS is a scam regardless of the manufacturer. It's essentially off the shelf hardware running some software. I can build my own NAS for far cheaper and with much more powerful hardware for the price these companies are asking. And yes I get the prebuilt argument but cmon. Even PC SI's dont charge so much for assembly and support as NAS sellers do despite the fact that PC's are far more complex that a storage server.

Scam is too strong a word. Yes of course you can build a more powerful, more customized system using your own personal time while valuing that personal time at $0, including not only the initial build but the ongoing tweaking and "support" (which in the personal case is usually just you or occasionally family.)

The target market for a good NAS is entirely different. It's a business or professional who is using the NAS to make money, who does not know or care to learn Linux and its ecosystem of server tools, and whose lost time at their profession while figuring it out would add up to a lot more than a few hundred bucks of padded purchase price - and whose stored work is probably vastly more valuable than the entire system cost should their inexperience lead to a problem they can't recover from. Companies like the old Synology who solved well for their most common use cases and make it so their users would literally never have to see a terminal shell nor even tinker more than a few minutes after first power on were providing a valuable service I would happily recommend to the right fit.

That's why it's so frustrating to see a once useful company turn to the path of working against their users instead of for them.

 

[RaXelliX]

Scam is too strong a word. Yes of course you can build a more powerful, more customized system using your own personal time while valuing that personal time at $0, including not only the initial build but the ongoing tweaking and "support" (which in the personal case is usually just you or occasionally family.)

The target market for a good NAS is entirely different. It's a business or professional who is using the NAS to make money, who does not know or care to learn Linux and its ecosystem of server tools, and whose lost time at their profession while figuring it out would add up to a lot more than a few hundred bucks of padded purchase price - and whose stored work is probably vastly more valuable than the entire system cost should their inexperience lead to a problem they can't recover from.

Like I said - I get the prebuilt argument, but the extra the money NAS manufacturers ask for this makes no sense to me. I get that guaranteeing someone's data and software is different than guaranteeing working hardware, but in my eyes they're not the worth it the price these companies are asking.

Also I was specifically talking about NAS for home use these manufacturers advertise these to and not just people who also buy prebuilt PC's too.
I dont see building my own NAS as more complex than building a DIY PC. PC already requires storage and installation and configuration of the OS. Building a NAS is even cheaper.
It could even be an old computer with added storage and different OS.

So personally I would never buy a NAS. If I wanted one I would build it or use my older PC's. Same as with a PC. So when I see my fellow DIY builders speaking about how they bought a NAS I think to myself - bro, you got scammed and scammed hard.