Guess I am going to be taking my "pro-sumer" dollars elsewhere.
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Why would anyone even use Synology?
Just buy a pc with big hard drives
Without technical know-how or experience in general using NAS, Synology is a good first-time option. All apps are ready for immediate use. And don't forget the majority of computer users don't even know what a NAS is and they simply want to store files for remote access.
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This is why I chose an ASUS nuc + external bay-storage for my home networking needs, felt like synology NAS would be a limiting factor.
So you built your own NAS, then. NAS is just an acronym, "Network Attached Storage". Not a singular line of products.
That said - I also feel the same way about Synology and the other "all-in-one NAS" brands. Expensive for what they are, which is essentially an incredibly cheap PC with a built in toaster. I built my NAS out of a 2014 Mac Mini (running OMV) and a Sabrent USB-C 4-bay drive dock, and even full of WD Reds, that entire rig is literally half the price of a DS920+. And more powerful.
I had been considering upgrading, my current 4 bay Synology is physically full and running out of storage space. Moving that to a larger Synology box and adding drives would be easiest, basically plug and play.
But now instead I'll probably just switch to a more traditional NAS instead. Run TrueNAS, or maybe give HexOS a look. If I'm going to have to convert from my current proprietary Synology filesystem anyway I might as well rebuild from scratch. As it is I've shifted all the services off the Synology and Docker to a dedicated Proxmox box.
Grab one of the 8 bays now, this won't affect anything currently released. I don't see me having to retire my 1813+ or 1819+ (both 8bay) anytime soon and both are 4+ years old without a hiccup.
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Yeah I expected that this would happen. They already did this with RAM. They just rebrand RAM, sell it for a way higher price and add a check. When they brought their own branded HDDs, I knew they will pull of the same scam.
Building an own server isn't that more expensive and you don't have to deal with the whole lockout with Synology. For example I had quite the issue to access hardware. I wasn't able to get Home Assistant running on my NAS. The issue was my Zigbee USB Stick. I got it running to the point where I was able to send commands (e.g. turn on or off lights) but the status didn't came back. I threw it on my Pi3 (now Pi5) and zero issues.
The next NAS is self build. Probably Proxmox as base, with truenas or so as main server and the rest depends on what I might need.
I have a synology I bought 3rd party ram (not synology) and it works fine. Same with drives just bought some seagate drives. Probably going to upgrade from a 4 bay to a 12 and I don’t see compatibility of ram being an issue. I just don’t feel like building a whole racked system I just want to plug and play and forget. As of now tho only thing I lose is warranty cause I’m using not “certified” ram and drives.
Isn’t synology basically a Linux system with lots of slots for storage? Can’t you just… buy a pi?
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Are we overreacting? Hasn't Synology always had a list of "certified" drives for their NAS', which end up being the same HDDs we would tend to use anyway?
I can understand that they don't want people using any garbage storage drives, which could increase failure and make Synology NAS' look unreliable.
Unless something has changed, this is how they've always done it, just like how every laptop manufacturer will say which RAM and storage works best (for reliability and performance) on their machines.
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