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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 issue

by j45 1y ago

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.

Fischgericht 1y ago
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.
- j45 1y ago
  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.
kstrauser 1y ago
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.
- j45 1y ago
  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.
- gosub100 1y ago
  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.
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    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.
    - gosub100 1y ago
      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.
112233 1y ago
Any example of such damaging blowback that is ravaging other NAS vendors who carelessly allow their users to recklessly use inappropriate drives?

by j45 1y ago

Fischgericht 1y ago

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.

j45 1y ago
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.

kstrauser 1y ago

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.

j45 1y ago
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.
gosub100 1y ago
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.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  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.
  - gosub100 1y ago
    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.

112233 1y ago

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