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Comment by Fischgericht | Hacker News Reader

NOT true. They have NOT fully reversed on this. Please read:

https://kb.synology.com/en-global/DSM/tutorial/Drive_compati...

The article is about the changed actual policy deployed with DSM 7.3, that only just started rolling out. Your link hasn’t been updated in over two months, so doesn’t reflect that yet.

Edit: Updated KB article is here: https://kb.synology.com/en-us/DSM/tutorial/Drive_compatibili...

This is not "my" link. That link is part of their press release.

Because I am no longer sure people are all getting shown the same content for that URL, here is what is shown to me (no local caches or proxies):

Hard disk drives (HDD) & M.2 NVMe solid-state drive (SSD) Series

Details

FS, HD, SA, UC, XS+, XS, Plus, DVA/NVR, and DP

Only drives listed in the compatibility list are supported.

Here is the updated KB article (note “en-us” vs. “en-global”): https://kb.synology.com/en-us/DSM/tutorial/Drive_compatibili...

In particular: “At the same time, with the introduction of DSM 7.3, 2025 DiskStation Plus series models offer more flexibility for installing third-party HDDs and 2.5" SATA SSDs when creating storage pools. While Synology recommends using drives from the compatibility list for optimal performance and reliability, users retain the flexibility to install other drives at their own discretion.”

NASCompares confirms that no warnings are shown: https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1o1a32m/testing_s...

I agree that the information is still a bit muddled right now.

Ahahaha.

I can confirm that if I change my Accept-Language headers in my browser from "en" to "en-US" I get the other version of that page. Actually, for everything else I tried other than "en-US" I get the evil version.

Synology press team Achievement unlocked: Confuse all global IT press outside of the United States.

Last self-reply on this, I promise:

If I would have to GUESS here is the explanation to this incorrect story:

AFAIK there is not SATA SSD vendor left on the market besides some left-over stock put into enclosures by some chinese companies. This means Synology will no longer have the option to force you to buy "compatible" SSDs, because they themselves can not source them.

So my GUESS (not backed up by proper research) is: They had to lift this requirement in hiding because they made it impossible to follow their extortion instructions.

Thanks for sharing.

It seems like they want to make sure NAS' are running NAS grade drives, instead of consumer grade (SMR) drives which can have serious issues when rebuilding an array after a drive failure.

Customers buying inappropriate drives for NAS and then eventually blowing back on Synology, if a driver of this could be handled differently.

Just commented here to point out that this news story spreading is wrong (and that other IT news outlets have since corrected/retracted it), don't have any eggs in that basket, but:

Discussions on their reasoning happened back when they introduced the extortion fees. No, it's not about NAS grade drives. They are just re-labelling existing NAS drive models, putting their own sticker onto it. The original manufacturers identical NAS drive model is then listed as incompatible.

There is nothing remotely connected to actual technology involved in this story at all. This is a sales-strategy-only subject.

I'm not a customer of Synology. I don't agree with justifying forced purchase of a relabeled product.

They deserve the result of their decision and not understanding their customers - they could just start a separate enterprise line if they didn't have one already for whatever they wanted to force.

Enterprise brands like HP, etc, to my last experience, do sell white-labelled drives, but don't bar you from using those same drives yourself.

My lack of trust remains with the parts that will fail the most - hard drives.

Hard Drive manufacturers don't have the best history, whether it was Western Digital lying to their customers about CMR when it was actually SMR. That would be my reason for never accepting a forced labelling of a drive.

Nah, not really. They already have a compatibility page of known-good drives and they recommend people stick to it. They could also have an incompatibility list showing known-bad drives, and alerting if you install one of them.

If I put junk tires on my Toyota, I don’t blame Toyota. But if Toyota used that as an excuse to make it impossible to use third party tires, I guarantee you my next car purchase wouldn’t have that same limitation.

In no way am I sticking up for Synology. I'm not a customer of Synology.

Customers should have absolute control over what drives they want, it's their choice to put crappy tires on their car or not.

Your Toyota analogy doesn't hold up. If a customer puts SMR into their NAS, they are absolutely going to call Synology and complain. And they are going to have to re-explain this over and over because most people don't understand nascent HDD writing modes the way they do a vehicle tire. Even then, and appropriate analogy would be a tire that is cheap and new but refuses to spin above 25mph vehicle speed.

First, I don't think that's true. It could even be a FAQ on their website:

Q: Why is my brand new WD drive so slow in my NAS?

A: Because they lied to you and sold you junk. Here are the details...

It would be very easy to push the blame onto the vendor, where it belongs, because the defect is 100% with the drive and not at all with Synology. They don't have any control over it. Synology could even automate this. Whenever you insert a drive that isn't on their compatibility list, it prompts you with a message to make sure you want to proceed. They could very easily make that popup say something like "WARNING: THIS HARD DRIVE MODEL IS DEFECTIVE. WE STRONGLY URGE YOU TO REMOVE IT AND REPLACE IT WITH A DRIVE ON OUR COMPATIBILITY LIST."

But in any case, dealing with those support requests has to be way cheaper than the enormous financial and reputational loss they seem to be taking from this boneheaded move.

SMR drives aren't defective though. They have a capacity and they are capable of storing at that capacity. They just can't keep up with the throughout requirements of a nas. And remember the WD SMR scandal was because they weren't being forthcoming about that limitation. I fully support Synology's move to lock it drives. I think it's the tech crowd that got it wrong... mostly. Synology should have sweetened the deal and along with the lock-in, offered cheaper prices with proof of purchase of the Disk Station.

They're defective by design when advertised as NAS drives. It was impossible for them to work as users expected given their construction. It wasn't defective in the sense that there was a manufacturing flaw that made some of them fail, but in the sense that it was inherently unfit for purpose. If you design a car's brakes to fall off when they get hot so as to protect the braking system at the expense of the car, even if it works as designed, it's still defective.

I don't know how to reply to the rest. If you think it's a good idea for Synology to make their systems not work with even known-good drives from reputable manufacturers, I don't think there's likely to be a common ground we can find to discuss it further.

Incorrect.

Western Digital deceptively sold and charged a premium for the WD Red drives sold as NAS drives that were CMR, when they were not.

Western Digital didn't withhold anything about SMR being good or bad.

Western Digital confesses some WD Red Drives use SMR without disclosure:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wd-fesses-up-some-red-hdds...

I know several folks who bought these drives as NAS drives, for NAS use, when they were not all the same. Folks could have just bought SMR drives from WD, but specifically bought NAS drives.

Western Digital's denial, and the fact it took a class action lawsuit, were enough that WD no longer sells WD RED, only WD Red+ and WD Red Pro.

SMR drives don't work well for NAS'. SMR is useful for things other than NAS storage which is on all the time.

Rebuilding a NAS because things overlap so much takes a lot longer with SMR drives, compared to CMR. SMR drives used in NAS formation seem to fail more too.

Building any kind of NAS with SMR drives is asking for trouble and pain. I guess SMR drives could be proactively replaced, would need to factor that into the cost / tco.

deceptive? sure. defective, nah. evidence of deception in the market further instills why Synology made the right move initially.

All Synology has to do is pop up a dialog box: "Warning: Bad idea. Don't blame us if this drive ruins your life. <Proceed> <Cancel>"

That's all they had to do.

Any example of such damaging blowback that is ravaging other NAS vendors who carelessly allow their users to recklessly use inappropriate drives?

Exec summary for those who think their time is not worth this evil madness:

The only change is that they now allow you to use any 2.5" SATA SSD. Everything else, meaning: 2.5" SATA HDDs (the by far most common thing you would want to use) and NVME SSDs: Still a no-no.

No, there was no lesson learned here by them at all.

The liked article specifically is wrong here:

"Third-party hard drives and 2.5-inch SATA SSDs"

No, not hard drives. 2.5" SSDs only.

Very sorry to spoil the party, but sadly Synology STILL hasn't learned the lesson. :(

Let's check again after they have lost 95% of their customers...

What are you talking about. This is a quote directly from the page you’ve linked to:

> At the same time, with the introduction of DSM 7.3, 2025 DiskStation Plus series models offer more flexibility for installing third-party HDDs and 2.5" SATA SSDs when creating storage pools.

I do not know if we are getting served different content for the same URL. Content I can see, with server-side timestamp of 2 seconds ago:

Hard disk drives (HDD) & M.2 NVMe solid-state drive (SSD) Series:

FS, HD, SA, UC, XS+, XS, Plus, DVA/NVR, and DP

Only drives listed in the compatibility list are supported.

Looks like you are indeed getting an older page. Try https://archive.is/8aUdC

As German IT news media has retracted the "Synology reverses" story based on the content they are reading in the press release link, I suspect there is some Geo-stuff involved here (I tested this from multiple German IPs now and always get "the other version").

> DS Plus series (DSM 7.3): > HDD > Not Listed > Supported for: > New installation and storage pool creation

This is the main change. Other series (not Plus) are still locked down.

Regardless, the fact that this is even a question or has ambiguity/uncertainty in any way is enough to get me to never use a Synology NAS.

> Last updated:Jul 30, 2025

Appears to be stale documentation.

Incompetency.

Good to get this fact about the Synology organization.

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