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Question [toms] synology plus series consumer systems to require synology branded drives

Shmee said:
Another good reason to build your own NAS.
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Synology was a good way to get a decent NAS setup in very little time. I used an entry-level one to make a simple backup machine for my parents and I liked the software so much that I decided to buy one of their NAS units at home as well. Not everything is amazing on the software front, but still it's a very beginner friendly way to start things and can save quite time for advanced users as well. When researching the purchase, I noticed Synology customers have been complaining for a while that the company is focusing their attention away from home users and small businesses (based on the updates and changes to their software ecosystem). I was initially tempted to look into their "local cloud" software to backup family devices, but based on my limited testing and their lack of focus for these apps I have decided to go another route.

The lock-in however is a really big problem, and I'm not talking just about the recent event. The unit I bought has 2x M2 slots that Synology decided can be used for storage only with their branded drives, otherwise can only be used for data caching. I knew about this going in (and researched a workaround) but at the time of my purchase I had hoped they would eventually loosen the restriction, not make it worse. As it stands, this will probably be my first and last purchase from them, which is a pitty because I really enjoyed the combo of convenience and flexibility it came with, extremely easy setup with enough support for more advanced tinkering.
 
From what I read, their branded drives are way more expensive than enterprise HDDs LOL. So this is pure rent-seeking (I imagine they're shipping NAS-rated drives, not even enterprise-class drives).
 
Yeah it's too much, considering what they already charge for the NAS itself.

I already have a self-built NAS but if it had a non-HDD hardware failure, 15 minutes later I could have another box providing file access, or really 1 minute later if I just moved the offline backup USB HDDs and ran from those while I sorted out what to do next.
 
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I never understood buying a NAS, but then again I am a die-hard builder. Just upgraded the CPU in my old workhorse NAS to an E5-2630v2. It didn't need it, but it was lower TDP than what it had, and it was five bucks, haha. That thing might outlast me, though the drives have been replaced here and there over the years.
 
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