Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move

Posted by motiejus 4/19/2025

Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move(www.servethehome.com)

653 points | 403 commentspage 5

donatj 4/22/2025|

Is there a good alternative these days for someone that only really wants network attached storage, e.g. some drives in a box, easy RAID setup and local network access via SMB?

I use my server for everything you'd use NAS Apps for. I have an aging Seagate NAS and had been eyeing Synology but this gives me pause.

gh02t 4/22/2025|

Depends on your skill level. TrueNAS is pretty great at core NAS functionality and its apps situation is also pretty good now that it's stabilizing after working through some growing pains, but it's also not as easy to use as Synology. I've used it for years (since it was still called FreeNAS) and personally wouldn't consider anything else. They offer their own hardware that is not badly priced, or you can load it up for free on your own generic DIY hardware (which will typically save you quite a few bucks over buying any all-in-one solution). Unraid is another good option for DIY that is easier to learn, though not free. Rolling your own from scratch on top of Debian or something also isn't particularly difficult if you're experienced with Linux, and running apps through Docker with something like Portainer.

For more direct competitors to Synology in terms of maximum easy user experience there are some decent options out there like QNAP, ASUStore, etc. Youtube is a good place to look for reviews that go in depth to compare.

HackerThemAll 4/22/2025||

I had asked them for years for the ability to exclude folders by name (or regex) in Synology Drive Sync to be able to keep out node_modules, .git and other garbage from synchronizing to my NAS. Support responded that I can just unselect the folder manually. They have never implemented it.

palmeida 4/22/2025||

My understanding is that they will just block drives that are not in the compatibility list and that list includes drives from all major vendors. Right now when you add a non compatible drive you just get a warning. Am I missing something?

nodesocket 4/19/2025||

My next NAS is going to be Ubiquiti UNAS Pro . 7 drive bays for $499. Can’t beat it.

ninkendo 4/19/2025||

Can you put a custom OS on it, wiping their software? I have a network rack in my basement (so, shallow depth, can’t fit a “full” depth server) and I’m looking for a dumb box of hard drives with otherwise simple/supported-by-linux hardware that I can use to build my own NAS. I don’t really want to use unifi’s software for it (plus it’s nice to just run plex/jellyfin/etc directly on the box)

I currently plug a USB3 4-bay disk enclosure into my homelab server for this, but the cabling is messy and it doesn’t support 20TB drives. I could upgrade to a newer enclosure, but I’d rather have a “real” rack mount system with drive bays.

nodesocket 4/19/2025|||

No can’t run custom OS as far as I know; without some seriously hackery. Admittedly UniFi NAS software currently is not nearly as feature rich and enterprise as TrueNAS for example, but it’s all very new. Ubiquiti has had a track record lately of iterating very quickly adding more and more enterprise features into their products. I expect to see more hardware offerings in the UNAS line soon as well. Highly recommend Ubiquiti! I have a complete setup at my house with their switches, routers, APs, and protect cameras. It’s awesome!

noahjk 4/19/2025||

I assume the UniFi NAS isn't meant for running Plex, for example. Most people seem to want a general purpose mixed media server, which can handle a bunch of data but where a good chunk of that data is movies/music/books that they want to stream. A good percentage of people probably also want to run docker containers. The $500 for (was it 7?) bays of storage is great, but probably mainly functions as a true NAS, so maybe not what a lot of people want. (I think the term "NAS" is a bit overused and can be deceptive for newer users entering the market)

nodesocket 4/19/2025||

I fully expect Ubiquiti to add some sort of container / VM support eventually to their UNAS products.

lostlogin 4/22/2025||

That would be rather delicious.

Their weird status with network speeds quicker than 1gb is irritating, but slowly improving.

VTimofeenko 4/22/2025||||

Assuming shallow depth is 450mm, you could fit in a Sliger shallow case. My workstation runs in one.

Piraty 4/22/2025|||

what i did is buy a 19" shelf and put a mini itx board and a few 5.25 cages next to it.

transpute 4/19/2025|||

Looks like their $300/4GB/1U/4bay and $500/8GB/2U/7bay half-depth devices with AWS-Annapurna SoC can run either NAS or NVR Linux. Bluetooth in a rackable device is unusual. OS might be replaceable with mainline Debian.

https://github.com/NeccoNeko/UNVR-diy-os/blob/main/IMAGES.md

bombcar 4/19/2025||

If it can run Gentoo it might be a big energy savings vs my old off lease machine with ZFS …

transpute 4/19/2025||

There's also a QNAP 1U for $600, which adds M.2 NVME and optional 32GB ECC RAM https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40868855

We need more Thunderbolt/USB4-to-JBOD 40Gbps storage enclosure options, for use with Ryzen mini PC or Lenovo Tiny.

joshstrange 4/19/2025|||

At first I was going to balk but then I remembered I paid ~$1.5K for a 12-bay Synology (and again for the 12-bag expansion unit).

This is much larger I think (and it bugs me that it’s not an even number of drives, and the offset of the drives is unpleasant) but it’s rackable so that’s a plus.

The only thing I’d want to know is sound (and I’m sure I can find a YouTube video).

I’ve been looking for an excuse to go all-in on a Ubiquiti setup… Thanks for mention this, I wasn’t aware Ubiquiti had a NAS product.

nodesocket 4/19/2025||

I believe the UNAS Pro is exceptionally quiet. Agree 7 drive is strange but they wanted their touchscreen so. I expect to see additional hardware units in the UNAS lineup released. Perhaps non-pro and enterprise versions.

Highly recommended Ubiquiti. I have it all throughout my house.

ksec 4/19/2025|||

What is the File System? BTRFS or ZFS?

I only wish they do a 2 Bay or 4 Bay version. Or better yet something like Time Capsule. 2 Bay + Ubnt Express.

nodesocket 4/19/2025||

Mdadm for the raid, btrfs for the filesystem. I expect to see them iterate and add ZFS eventually as well as new hardware units. Perhaps non-pro and enterprise versions.

johntitorjr 4/19/2025||

[dead]

_spduchamp 4/22/2025||

A friend of mine ditched his Synology for a very low cost multidrive chassis from Aliexpress, and this... https://unraid.net/

Seems like a good setup.

darkwater 4/22/2025||

I built my own NAS loosely following this tutorial [1] (mostly for the bill of materials), currently with just 3 4TB disks. Installed NixOS w/ ZFS + K3s on it (I want to use it as a learning playground as well), and deployed a lot of software on it using TrueCharts helm charts, or some other random/self-written charts, and deployed with ArgoCD. Yes, I don't have a nice UI or a nice cloud integration, I have to do almost everything by hand but it's a side-project in itself and fun. For example, now I'm playing with a Postgres operator to manage the databases resources.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNMtmUOCtwI

bayindirh 4/22/2025||

I personally thank Synology for removing themselves from my NAS shopping list and ceding the top of the list to Unraid.

ksec 4/19/2025||

I think they are on their way to exit the consumer market. Their linux kernel is old. And DSM dont update the kernel.

AndrewDucker 4/19/2025||

What's better for running Plex?

Assuming I want 4 drives and something that can transcode multiple files in real time.

Marsymars 4/22/2025||

You’re really best off not trying to lump together your Plex server and your NAS on the same box. You can use an odroid H4 or any cheapo Alder Lake-N laptop for your Plex server, and any NAS solution to store the media.

NL807 4/22/2025||

>You’re really best off not trying to lump together your Plex server and your NAS on the same box.

Why not? If you are not going to do transcoding, Plex should sit fine on a NAS.

benoau 4/22/2025|||

Basically an archaic idea that a NAS has to be only good at one thing which is just file sharing.

It's hard to actually buy a computer that bad these days, although Synology still makes it easy lol.

nottorp 4/22/2025||

Tbh another archaic idea is that you need to transcode.

All you need is one of those sticks that plug into the hdmi of your tv and can run vlc. I use a chromecast. Vlc can play mkvs directly off samba shares. Done.

benoau 4/22/2025||

TBH the only reason anyone talks about transcoding is Synology's absolute dog-shit hardware options make it a problem. Most Intel CPUs and most AMD CPUs and many ARM CPUs and all the discrete GPUs are absolutely fine with munging video and audio codecs. They're just not well-represented in Synology's lineup.

lostlogin 4/22/2025||

Can you list things you don’t like about the Synology?

I can transcode just fine on a 1821 (though use a separate machine to do it for other reasons). The units seems fine, what am I missing out on?

benoau 4/22/2025||

Fundamentally I guess it feels like they have ground to a halt or even quietly retired the DSM line.

Let's look at your NAS for an example (it's actually worse for mine cause I always loved the Slims lmao).

DS1821 has no GPU transcoding because it uses the AMD Ryzen 1500B, what you've observed is this processor is just powerful enough to brute force some transcoding but it has no hardware transcoding:

https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS1821+#specs

DS1821 successor was recently revealed to be the DS1825. So if your NAS died in a few months, that would be your obvious choice for a replacement. They decided to continue using the AMD Ryzen 1500B, which is now seven years old. TBD if they bother releasing it this year. In a few months they could call it DS1826 instead.

https://nascompares.com/2025/03/13/synology-ds525-ds1525-ds4...

Meanwhile DSM still lacks support for NVMe volumes, in fact there are still no NVMe-only models at all, you can't even install DSM to NVMe, they cut support for USB drives, they cut support for HEVC, and they almost never update docker and some of the other tools.

The hardware's going nowhere and the software's going backwards.

lostlogin 4/22/2025||

I would like to use ssds for running containers, this is a good point. The elderly cpu is more than adequate for my needs but as you say, an upgrade, ever, would be nice.

I guess I’ve avoided these issues by accepting that solid state storage in a NAS is still too expensive.

My ultimate would be the Synology with an Apple silicon heart. One can dream.

nicolas_t 4/22/2025||

While it's not officially supported you can use nvmes to run containers. I do this on my own nas and it works great. See https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1gobb14/guide_how...

That said, the person you're replying to is right. Synology has mostly stopped supporting their apps, they've removed features in cost-cutting features (media codecs), hardware is now hopelessly outdated and both kernel and docker are completely out of date.

It feels like any technical leadership completely disappeared and now only bean counters who don't understand the product or their target market are making decisions.

Marsymars 4/22/2025||||

You got different replies from others, but my 2¢ since you were replying me - if you're not doing transcoding, then I agree, Plex on a NAS is fine - it's basically just a wrapper around some shared files in that case. (The post I was replying to did specify that they were doing transcoding.)

int_19h 4/22/2025|||

Even if you do transcoding, it's still fine so long as it has supported hardware for HW-accelerated encoding. Which doesn't require all that much - even fairly basic Synology models can do H.265.

Marsymars 4/22/2025||

Some do, but the models with HW-accelerated transcoding have been shrinking - it's only the "prosumer" models that have Intel Quick Sync (with no guarantee that refreshed products will maintain it) - the lower end models have ARM processors without HW-accelerated transcoding and higher end models have Ryzen processors without GPUs.

dogleash 4/19/2025|||

About a year ago ago I bit the bullet and frankestiend together a TrueNAS scale box. I hated the idea of the DIY route and stuck with frustrating SOHO nas devices for way too long. An all in one NAS product that has an app store or supports containers is nice in theory but in my experience always ended up with a NUC running proxmox sitting next to the NAS.

Managing it is fine. It expects you to understand ZFS more than a turnkey RAID 5 + btrfs job, but has an OK UI and seems born out of the fact ZFS people want that customization, not forcing you fend for yourself. I read a 15 minute explainer, built a pool, and didn't have to think about it at all other than replacing a failed drive last month. And all that took was a quick google to make sure I was doing it right, which is exactly how I replaced drives in a standalone nas.

AndrewDucker 4/19/2025||

Plex runs very happily on my Synology box. So I'd want something that was a reasonably drop-in replacement, and not something that required more work.

benoau 4/20/2025||

For "just Plex" - more specifically anything except Synology's own suite of apps - any Mac, Windows or Linux computer or headless docker server will provide the same experience with a ton of better options, like installing to a NVMe without shenanigans for a start!

AndrewDucker 4/20/2025|||

That all sounds like something that will require maintenance. Being able to slide a dead drive out, slide a new one in, and have any extra space be added automatically is fantastic. Not having to worry about updates, etc. These are things I'm willing to pay for.

benoau 4/20/2025||

If Synology is not interested in your use-case it doesn't really matter if you'd pay them to support it. But also they suck at most of what you're claiming anyway IMHO. Even their docker version is six years out of date.

lostlogin 4/22/2025|||

How do you install an nvme in a Mac?

How do you expand the storage to 100+ TB?

The web gui is nice to use, what does Windows/Linux or the Mac offer? I’d prefer a Mac option, but I don’t believe there is a good one.

Marsymars 4/22/2025||

Upside of Mac is good Thunderbolt support. A ThunderBay 8 (or comparable) gives you 8 SATA bays. The baseline Mac Mini supports up to 18 such Thunderbolt bays via chained Thunderbolt. (Can also get nvme thunderbolt drives.)

queenkjuul 4/22/2025|||

I saw on level1techs, a 4 Bay chassis with an AMD APU plenty capable of transcoding multiple streams. Can't remember who made it, and you'd have to DIY the OS install, but that's pretty ideal to me.

What i do, and will continue to do, is use a USB-C disk box (Level 1 also recently reviewed some they quite liked, despite the usual fears around USB) and whatever PC i have laying around. 5 years strong running ZFS over USB 3 with a 4770K, regularly serving 4 Plex streams at once without complaints and no failures (i mean, usual disks wearing out, but nothing caused by USB).

So if a 4770 can transcode 2x1080 and direct play 2x more, any old anything with hardware transcoding these days should be just fine.

threeseed 4/22/2025|||

I ended up just running Infuse on an AppleTV.

Then there is no need for transcoding at all.

Hikikomori 4/22/2025||

I use a NUC with a terrmaster DAS connected with usb.

j45 4/22/2025|

Spot on.

I’d add that mandatory drives when they aren’t the experts in it making drives a bad move.

Maybe other manufacturers are the way.

nicolas_t 4/22/2025|

They're just white labeling Toshibas

j45 4/22/2025||

If the drives must identify as a QNAP secured drive, they could be whitelabeled toshibas but a user can only buy their white-labeled toshibas I'm presuming.

More comments...