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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Synology will again allow third-party drives in its NAS boxes.
- Users will need to upgrade to DSM 7.3 to remove the restriction.
- The restriction remains in place for M.2 drives.
NAS maker Synology is trying to cure a headache it gave itself this year
Back in April, the company announced that it would block all but its own Synology-branded HDDs and SSDs in its 2025 line of DiskStation Plus models<!–>, preventing owners from using excellent drives such as the WD Red–>, Red Plus<!–>, and Red Pro–> or Seagate IronWolf<!–>, drives that are cheaper and arguably better than their Synology counterparts.
Also: The best network-attached storage devices you can buy
The drives affected are:
There was a predictable backlash, and I heard from a number of people who were put off buying a Synology system. I also became somewhat hesitant to recommend Synology NAS systems because of this change, despite the hardware being the best in class.
Well, it seems that the company has mostly caved to pressure – I’ll get to the limitation shortly – and with the release of DSM 7.3 it will “support installation and storage pool creation with third-party drives.” The company says that it “is collaborating with drive manufacturers to expand the range of certified storage media, delivering more reliable options.”
–>
Supported drives are listed on the company’s website.
Owners who want to start making use of third-party drives in your 2025 DiskStation Plus will need to upgrade their NAS to DSM 7.3.
But there is a catch that remains, one that Synology buried in a footnote to the announcement of the change. And this is that while third-party HDDs and SSDs are now allowed, users who want to install M.2 drives for either storage or caching will still have to buy Synology-branded M.2 drives.
Whether this is permanent or if this limitation will be lifted in the future remains to be seen.
Source: Robotics - zdnet.com
