5 ms·

The decision to restrict 3rd party harddrives may be part of the reason why sales (allegedly) plummet, but i'm guessing lack of innovation also plays a big part

The decision to restrict 3rd party harddrives may be part of the reason why sales (allegedly) plummet, but i'm guessing lack of innovation also plays a big part. Synology has been resting on the laurels for years. They had a "hit" with DSM 6, then did mostly nothing for a decade, released DSM 7, and again, nothing but minor things since. On the hardware side of things, they're mostly still using decade old hardware, but i guess that matches the Linux kernel they're using, which was also EOL close to a decade ago. Meanwhile the NAS market has been flooded by viable alternatives with better hardware, equal or better software, and usually cheaper. UGREEN and others have released more or less drop in replacements, and Ubiquiti released the UNAS line, and while it doesn't work as an application server, will run around circles any similarly specced (drive wise) Synology in raw file transfer performance, for half the price. I'm guessing the 3rd party drive removal was simply just the final push that caused many people to switch to something else. Transcoding removal was likely also a big driver, as many people also use their Synology NAS as a Plex server.

layer8 1y ago
Exactly that. Their hardware and software hardly improved over a decade, instead they dropped features. The whole HDD ordeal and researching alternatives also made me realize that I’d rather have ZFS (even at the price of less flexibility with mixing drive sizes). Synology reversing course on the proprietary HDDs therefore won’t win me back.
eecc 1y ago
Oh nice, thanks for mentioning UGREEN. I had a quick look at the website and it looks fairly cheap. I wouldn't trust their software but the base system comes on an MMC, does it mean I can flash it with TrueNAS or Unraid?
- its_notjack 1y ago
  Yes, their units come with a HDMI out, and you can connect them up to install onto them like any other server - but if you ever want the (admittedly very, very good) factory software back on them I'd recommend imaging the internal storage first as I couldn't find a way to get their OS installed back afterwards.
- neogodless 1y ago
  While I'm using UGOS happily, yes you can install other OSes. For better or worse they have a very active Discord server with a ton of great information. The base software is modified Debian Bookworm and it's been stable and pleasant to use.
- layer8 1y ago
  Yes, see here: https://nascompares.com/guide/truenas-on-a-ugreen-nas-installation-guide/ https://nascompares.com/guide/truenas-on-a-ugreen-nas-instal...
- f4uCL9dNSnQm 1y ago
  It is 100% normal x86 mini-PC, just with HDD bays.
- crtasm 1y ago
  Can you run Unraid on MMC? Its licensing is tied to the GUID of a USB stick.
nolok 1y ago
Their btrfs is using a very old branches with tons of change, which is probably a strong reason why they're locked on that old kernel. They need to do something about it urgently.
- iAMkenough 1y ago
  They're too busy using an EOL Docker engine that hasn't seen a security update in 16 months.
coisnepe 1y ago
As someone else mentioned here, I'd wager a large part of Synology customers were people who'd have had the technical ability to setup their own NAS server but didn't want to bother, instead electing a "setup and forget" solution. I know that's who I was when I bought my first Syno DS several years ago. A few months ago I realized I'd outgrown it so I looked into the next Synology solutions, and all I saw were overpriced, outdated hardware that weren't worth DSM's ease of use. Got Ubiquiti's UNAS with a couple of HDDs, a Beelink mini PC, and for a little time and roughly the same budget of a DS, got something far superior in specs and basically matching in ease of use.
- rolleiflex 1y ago
  Similar, but slightly different story for me. I ended up buying it as an enthusiast ‘Apple-grade’ product where UX was there to do something I would be able to do on my own. Then they got high on their own supply and started to believe they can be as restrictive and up charging as Apple, forgetting that they’re still a product for primarily fairly technical people. Also, for all server needs I’m running a Raspberry Pi at a single digit fraction of the ongoing power use of my Synology, and it just no longer makes sense to have this weird rare platform as my base when I could just be running things on Debian and systemd. More philosophically, life got busy, and I no longer have the mental capacity and willingness to maintain something like a Synology. The only large content I back up are my family’s photos and I just pay Apple for iCloud monthly, I consider that to be money well spent.
  - 8fingerlouie 1y ago
    > More philosophically, life got busy, and I no longer have the mental capacity and willingness to maintain something like a Synology. The only large content I back up are my family’s photos and I just pay Apple for iCloud monthly, I consider that to be money well spent. I'm more or less in the same situation. I no longer use a NAS for my "daily driver", and as such it made sense to skip Synology and instead go for the cheaper option, which in my case was the UNAS Pro (only model available at the time). Next to it sits an "old" Mac Mini M1, which hosts my Plex server, with storage provided by the UNAS over 10Gbps ethernet. Everything else i might at some point in time have used the Synology for, has instead been delegated to iCloud. Documents, photos, and everything in between is stored there, and each laptop makes a backup with Arq backup to the NAS as well as another cloud provider. My NAS today is literally just an advanced USB drive attached to a server, and that was also part of my considerations at the time, just getting a DAS and plugging that into the Mac Mini M1, but ultimately the UNAS Pro (with 10Gbps networking) was cheaper than a Thunderbolt DAS, and i already had a switch capable of 10Gbps. I made a similar "journey" some years back, where i removed pretty much everything cabled from the network, and instead moved everything to WiFi, and instead doubling down on providing "the best" wifi experience i could, which today means WiFi 7 with 2.5Gbps uplinks, hence the 10Gbps switch. My network is 100% private. I don't expose ports to the internet, meaning maintenance is no longer a "must do" task. The only access is via Wireguard, which can be done with an always on profile that routes traffic for that specific subnet, but more realistically is mostly never used. The most remote streaming is done via a site to site VPN from my summerhouse to my house, where i can stream Plex over.
nerdjon 1y ago
I have to wonder how much to 3 new NAS systems from Ubiquiti played into this. They seem pretty targeted at Synology at a great price. I have the original UNAS pro and it has been fantastic. Sure I can't run apps on it, but how much do people really run apps on their synology vs just use it as a basic NAS to begin with? I never found any of the apps really all that great to begin with. The only one I kinda liked was synology sync but really don't need something like that with freesync.
- gh02t 1y ago
  In my mind app support is the main reason to pick Synology. They may not always be as capable as the best self hostable and/or commercial alternatives, but they are easy for people with intermediate skills to set up and maintain. That makes them a good deal for prosumer homes and SMBs without a dedicated IT guy. And with the way the Synology apps are designed you're then somewhat locked in. You can get basic network storage more or less anywhere, for much cheaper, so in my mind apps and the polished GUI + integration are the only reason you would even consider Synology unless you're already locked in. Maybe technical support contracts at the higher end, but you can get that, done better, from other vendors too.
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
Synology was in the back of my head for years as a straightforward home server product, but emphasis on "years". The other day I saw a competitor that had a hand grenade sized alternative, a cooling with 4 or 8 1 TB M2 SSDs arranged around it. And I thought, why the fuck is Synology still top of mind? I suppose they have plenty of corporate customers still, companies that are too small for their own proper servers (self managed or hosted) but who do want some central storage and more importantly the tech support that comes with it. But those would just as likely go to Dell for all their requirements.
- gosub100 1y ago
  I think they are for premium segment creators like photographers, videographers or musicians. They have the money to invest and want a plug and play experience.
vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
" i'm guessing lack of innovation also plays a big part." Totally. Whenever a company runs out of ideas they pull BS like this to increase profits.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
HumblyTossed 1y ago
>>> but i'm guessing lack of innovation also plays a big part. It's a NAS. It just needs to be reliable.
- Subdivide8452 1y ago
  If you know what Synology is, you know it's more than just network based storage.
- 8fingerlouie 1y ago
  There are plenty of NAS boxes out there with better specs, lower power consumption, faster networking, and half the price. Synology has marketed their NAS boxes as “application servers”, replacing Google Drive/Dropbox/Whatever, as well as various photo management solutions, office suite, instant messaging, mail server, virtual machine host, docker host, and much more. In theory they’re able to do all that, but out of the box they’re barely able to run Synology Drive (Google Drive replacement) and Synology Photos at the same time, and requires a RAM upgrade to perform. Even with upgraded RAM, you’re still looking at a low powered processor that’s a decade old. Yes, it will run home assistant and Pihole / Adguard home just fine, and probably also Vaultwarden and others. It also runs the entire *arr stack with Plex/Emby/Jellyfin on top (though they’ve removed transcoding and hardware acceleration despite the CPU being capable). And I guess that keeps a lot of users happy. It does “what they want” in a fire & forget solution. Set it up, toss it in a closet, and stop worrying. If only their apps weren’t half baked. Photos runs well, rarely stops working, but doesn’t backup photos as much as it intends to replace whatever photo management solution you’re using today. Sadly their solution doesn’t backup originals but only edited versions, and their own software doesn’t support editing. Their “AI” features are extremely limited (probably due to lack of CPU/GPU). Drive works, but it’s oh so slow. I can synchronize my entire iCloud contents locally faster than Synology Drive can upload it over LAN. The list goes on. Their apps do the absolute minimum needed to be usable, and once they’ve reached that stage they rarely update them except to fix bugs.
hedora 1y ago
Regarding lack of innovation: They still haven’t made the jump to NVMe. They have things with two slots, which I guess is good enough for raid 1, but those models also have HDD bays, which wastes space in network closets. I’d expect them to have something with 4-8 incredibly well-cooled m.2 slots by now. The nic is only 2.5G, so the slots wouldn’t need to be full speed. I’m happy with my ancient 2TB synology NAS, but it’s bigger, slower, noisier and hotter than my mini-pc, which also has two (toasty) nvme slots.
- ThrowawayR2 1y ago
  IIRC the only devices supported in the NVMe slots are their own Synology branded ones at a steep markup. It would be nice if they backed down on that too but I bet they won't.
thoroughburro 1y ago
> as a Plex server Well, Jellyfin. Plex pulled a Slymology long ago.
- 8fingerlouie 1y ago
  I have an old lifetime license, so I’m still using it. No issues at all. I also have a lifetime license for Emby but plex is way more polished.

layer8 1y ago

Exactly that. Their hardware and software hardly improved over a decade, instead they dropped features. The whole HDD ordeal and researching alternatives also made me realize that I’d rather have ZFS (even at the price of less flexibility with mixing drive sizes). Synology reversing course on the proprietary HDDs therefore won’t win me back.

eecc 1y ago

Oh nice, thanks for mentioning UGREEN. I had a quick look at the website and it looks fairly cheap. I wouldn't trust their software but the base system comes on an MMC, does it mean I can flash it with TrueNAS or Unraid?

its_notjack 1y ago
Yes, their units come with a HDMI out, and you can connect them up to install onto them like any other server - but if you ever want the (admittedly very, very good) factory software back on them I'd recommend imaging the internal storage first as I couldn't find a way to get their OS installed back afterwards.
neogodless 1y ago
While I'm using UGOS happily, yes you can install other OSes. For better or worse they have a very active Discord server with a ton of great information. The base software is modified Debian Bookworm and it's been stable and pleasant to use.
layer8 1y ago
Yes, see here: https://nascompares.com/guide/truenas-on-a-ugreen-nas-installation-guide/ https://nascompares.com/guide/truenas-on-a-ugreen-nas-instal...
f4uCL9dNSnQm 1y ago
It is 100% normal x86 mini-PC, just with HDD bays.
crtasm 1y ago
Can you run Unraid on MMC? Its licensing is tied to the GUID of a USB stick.

nolok 1y ago

Their btrfs is using a very old branches with tons of change, which is probably a strong reason why they're locked on that old kernel. They need to do something about it urgently.

iAMkenough 1y ago
They're too busy using an EOL Docker engine that hasn't seen a security update in 16 months.

coisnepe 1y ago

As someone else mentioned here, I'd wager a large part of Synology customers were people who'd have had the technical ability to setup their own NAS server but didn't want to bother, instead electing a "setup and forget" solution. I know that's who I was when I bought my first Syno DS several years ago. A few months ago I realized I'd outgrown it so I looked into the next Synology solutions, and all I saw were overpriced, outdated hardware that weren't worth DSM's ease of use. Got Ubiquiti's UNAS with a couple of HDDs, a Beelink mini PC, and for a little time and roughly the same budget of a DS, got something far superior in specs and basically matching in ease of use.

rolleiflex 1y ago
Similar, but slightly different story for me. I ended up buying it as an enthusiast ‘Apple-grade’ product where UX was there to do something I would be able to do on my own. Then they got high on their own supply and started to believe they can be as restrictive and up charging as Apple, forgetting that they’re still a product for primarily fairly technical people. Also, for all server needs I’m running a Raspberry Pi at a single digit fraction of the ongoing power use of my Synology, and it just no longer makes sense to have this weird rare platform as my base when I could just be running things on Debian and systemd. More philosophically, life got busy, and I no longer have the mental capacity and willingness to maintain something like a Synology. The only large content I back up are my family’s photos and I just pay Apple for iCloud monthly, I consider that to be money well spent.
- 8fingerlouie 1y ago
  > More philosophically, life got busy, and I no longer have the mental capacity and willingness to maintain something like a Synology. The only large content I back up are my family’s photos and I just pay Apple for iCloud monthly, I consider that to be money well spent. I'm more or less in the same situation. I no longer use a NAS for my "daily driver", and as such it made sense to skip Synology and instead go for the cheaper option, which in my case was the UNAS Pro (only model available at the time). Next to it sits an "old" Mac Mini M1, which hosts my Plex server, with storage provided by the UNAS over 10Gbps ethernet. Everything else i might at some point in time have used the Synology for, has instead been delegated to iCloud. Documents, photos, and everything in between is stored there, and each laptop makes a backup with Arq backup to the NAS as well as another cloud provider. My NAS today is literally just an advanced USB drive attached to a server, and that was also part of my considerations at the time, just getting a DAS and plugging that into the Mac Mini M1, but ultimately the UNAS Pro (with 10Gbps networking) was cheaper than a Thunderbolt DAS, and i already had a switch capable of 10Gbps. I made a similar "journey" some years back, where i removed pretty much everything cabled from the network, and instead moved everything to WiFi, and instead doubling down on providing "the best" wifi experience i could, which today means WiFi 7 with 2.5Gbps uplinks, hence the 10Gbps switch. My network is 100% private. I don't expose ports to the internet, meaning maintenance is no longer a "must do" task. The only access is via Wireguard, which can be done with an always on profile that routes traffic for that specific subnet, but more realistically is mostly never used. The most remote streaming is done via a site to site VPN from my summerhouse to my house, where i can stream Plex over.

nerdjon 1y ago

I have to wonder how much to 3 new NAS systems from Ubiquiti played into this. They seem pretty targeted at Synology at a great price. I have the original UNAS pro and it has been fantastic. Sure I can't run apps on it, but how much do people really run apps on their synology vs just use it as a basic NAS to begin with? I never found any of the apps really all that great to begin with. The only one I kinda liked was synology sync but really don't need something like that with freesync.

gh02t 1y ago
In my mind app support is the main reason to pick Synology. They may not always be as capable as the best self hostable and/or commercial alternatives, but they are easy for people with intermediate skills to set up and maintain. That makes them a good deal for prosumer homes and SMBs without a dedicated IT guy. And with the way the Synology apps are designed you're then somewhat locked in. You can get basic network storage more or less anywhere, for much cheaper, so in my mind apps and the polished GUI + integration are the only reason you would even consider Synology unless you're already locked in. Maybe technical support contracts at the higher end, but you can get that, done better, from other vendors too.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

Synology was in the back of my head for years as a straightforward home server product, but emphasis on "years". The other day I saw a competitor that had a hand grenade sized alternative, a cooling with 4 or 8 1 TB M2 SSDs arranged around it. And I thought, why the fuck is Synology still top of mind? I suppose they have plenty of corporate customers still, companies that are too small for their own proper servers (self managed or hosted) but who do want some central storage and more importantly the tech support that comes with it. But those would just as likely go to Dell for all their requirements.

gosub100 1y ago
I think they are for premium segment creators like photographers, videographers or musicians. They have the money to invest and want a plug and play experience.

vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago

" i'm guessing lack of innovation also plays a big part." Totally. Whenever a company runs out of ideas they pull BS like this to increase profits.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

HumblyTossed 1y ago

>>> but i'm guessing lack of innovation also plays a big part. It's a NAS. It just needs to be reliable.

Subdivide8452 1y ago
If you know what Synology is, you know it's more than just network based storage.
8fingerlouie 1y ago
There are plenty of NAS boxes out there with better specs, lower power consumption, faster networking, and half the price. Synology has marketed their NAS boxes as “application servers”, replacing Google Drive/Dropbox/Whatever, as well as various photo management solutions, office suite, instant messaging, mail server, virtual machine host, docker host, and much more. In theory they’re able to do all that, but out of the box they’re barely able to run Synology Drive (Google Drive replacement) and Synology Photos at the same time, and requires a RAM upgrade to perform. Even with upgraded RAM, you’re still looking at a low powered processor that’s a decade old. Yes, it will run home assistant and Pihole / Adguard home just fine, and probably also Vaultwarden and others. It also runs the entire *arr stack with Plex/Emby/Jellyfin on top (though they’ve removed transcoding and hardware acceleration despite the CPU being capable). And I guess that keeps a lot of users happy. It does “what they want” in a fire & forget solution. Set it up, toss it in a closet, and stop worrying. If only their apps weren’t half baked. Photos runs well, rarely stops working, but doesn’t backup photos as much as it intends to replace whatever photo management solution you’re using today. Sadly their solution doesn’t backup originals but only edited versions, and their own software doesn’t support editing. Their “AI” features are extremely limited (probably due to lack of CPU/GPU). Drive works, but it’s oh so slow. I can synchronize my entire iCloud contents locally faster than Synology Drive can upload it over LAN. The list goes on. Their apps do the absolute minimum needed to be usable, and once they’ve reached that stage they rarely update them except to fix bugs.

hedora 1y ago

Regarding lack of innovation: They still haven’t made the jump to NVMe. They have things with two slots, which I guess is good enough for raid 1, but those models also have HDD bays, which wastes space in network closets. I’d expect them to have something with 4-8 incredibly well-cooled m.2 slots by now. The nic is only 2.5G, so the slots wouldn’t need to be full speed. I’m happy with my ancient 2TB synology NAS, but it’s bigger, slower, noisier and hotter than my mini-pc, which also has two (toasty) nvme slots.

ThrowawayR2 1y ago
IIRC the only devices supported in the NVMe slots are their own Synology branded ones at a steep markup. It would be nice if they backed down on that too but I bet they won't.

thoroughburro 1y ago

> as a Plex server Well, Jellyfin. Plex pulled a Slymology long ago.

8fingerlouie 1y ago
I have an old lifetime license, so I’m still using it. No issues at all. I also have a lifetime license for Emby but plex is way more polished.