The whole debacle with Syno compatibility has been blurred by Synology using it more recently as a revenue stream. Whilst there are HDDs that do not play nice (eg SMR drives) those factual issues are getting drowned-out by artificial 'vendor locks' as they try to extract more money from the customers. As a reminder of recent times:
- Synology pushed WD drives heavily, especially Red and Red Pro.
- Synology then pushed Seagate drives heavily with additional Ironwolf support
- Synology now pushes Toshiba drives (under a Synology sticker), with a tweaked firmware.
Those 3 drive manufactures are the sum total of all HDD manufacturers out there. In the space of ownership of a single DS1517+ they marched through the lot of them and in reality nothing changed. No doubt they will march through the list again as the wheel goes around.
Nobody can predict what Synology will do with more draconian vendor-locked firmware in the future. In the meantime my
RS1221+ has had no issues with any drive (HDD or SSD, shucked or otherwise, consumer or enterprise). Clearly I would not stick a SMR drive or a ridiculously noisy drive in it. If Synology becomes difficult during a future warranty claim then the £50 fee for the small claims court awaits.