Older Synology NAS devices won’t be affected by the drive changes
Synology is pushing for consumers to buy its own brand of hard drives for its newest NAS appliances, with only certified drives getting the full suite of software support.
The cost of a network-attached storage (NAS) device could be split into two components, with the NAS itself as one part, while the drives that fill it make up the second. At higher capacities, the drives can be the more costly element to acquire, and often leads to users shopping around for deals on hard disks.
It appears that Synology is keen to earn more from users by getting them to purchase its own line of hard drives to go with the NAS.
Spotted by Hardwareluxx.de and confirmed by a press release on Synology’s German-language website, the NAS maker is making changes to the way its drives software operates. For some models of NAS released in 2025, it will have a considerable preference to the use of Synology-branded or Synology-certified drives.
Synology says that its Plus series models shipping in 2025 will behave differently for third-party drives that haven’t got the Synology certification. Officially sanctioned and deemed compatible drives will work with all of the features and support functions the NAS will offer, but others will not.
The limits of uncertified drives will include restrictions on pool creation, with them also missing out on volume-wide deduplication, lifespan analysis, and automatic hard drive firmware update features. The loss of these features for third-party drives could cause problems, such as users being unaware of issues until it’s too late and data has already been lost.
More warnings, more profits
While these features won’t be available to uncertified third-party drives, the drives will still work with a NAS as storage. Warnings will be displayed about support, which could scare users into buying Synology’s drives, but they should otherwise work fine.
The company adds that there won’t be any changes to Plus models released in 2024 or in earlier years, with the exception of XS Plus models and rack-based editions.
The reason for the changes is put forward by Synology as a result of the success of its High-Performance series of drives. It’s claimed that this will grant “the highest levels of security and performance, while also offering significantly more efficient support.”
An alternative and fairly obvious reason for doing so is to earn more revenue from consumers kitting out the NAS. Rather than getting cheaper drives from another supplier, the changes will probably influence users into buying Synology’s drives, so that they don’t miss out on safety features.
