Info Synology's "Incompatibility" List ... Yikes!

[WST16]

Order must be kept.

Couldn’t resist the dark side. I’ll be banned soon

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[Telos]

this will not happen so aggressively on the DS lineup (no plans to force syno drives). So no need to panic

Not so fast... if there is no technical or warranty support when non-compatible drives/memory are involved, this is a circus ploy.

 

[Rusty]

true. stick to the list and all will be fine that’s what i’m saying. non rs lineup will not feel this that’s much. plenty of drives on the ok list

 

[Lewis]

Just when I wanted to buy (move/switch to) RS 1221+ line, Dang i definitely do now want to throw out my 8, 10 and 14TB IronWolf and IronWolfPROs just because Synology changed their mind about compatibility....

 

[jeyare]

Synology NASes are nothing more than a collection of low-end, older & established PC parts.

I would try to put it differently - in its time (2000), Synology came up with the idea of offering to the mass market something it did not have, it did not want, but they were able to generate demand in such a demanding environment - the basis of a market economy.

They built the whole concept because you buy HW, and you will have SW / services (included in the price of HW). Then, four years after the creation of Synology came QNAP - their current biggest competitor in the mass market.

I have described several times that it is not sustainable in the long run to sell just HW and to feed on R&D from it. Then you do only one thing well (creating HW) or just the other (SW). Or everything at half power. And from what sources to finance the free of charge support?

Synology's door opening to the enterprise was logical, but it was probably made by people who only know the mass market. It is felt at every step or announcement or in a single DSM for all (j class or flagships for the enterprise), same for the support.

Unfortunately, Qnap also found out that if it wants to deliver to the enterprise, it must build support completely differently - this is how the QNAP Business Support Service was created.
We can write about it indefinitely here. We won't change anything about it. Rusty is right.

-- post merged: 30. Aug 2021 --

Just when I wanted to buy (move/switch to) RS 1221+ line, Dang i definitely do now want to throw out my 8, 10 and 14TB IronWolf and IronWolfPROs just because Synology changed their mind about compatibility....

I enjoyed my DSs and I still enjoy great moments from the smallest DS718 + to DS18xx. I currently have 9 of them (in my office and home and remote sites). I have no bad word on Seagate enterprise HDDs. Every NAS contains these disks. Did I pay extra? Yes, but for quality. The oldest are +10 years old and run almost 24/7.

I believe that if Synology doesn't fundamentally ruin it, they will continue to thrive in the mass market.

 

[Jan Janowski]

Been dealing with raids for Broadcast and Post Production since SCSI-1 IN MID 80’s. SCSI 1,2,3, 50/68/80.. 20 - 320Mc, SAS, IDE (Yuuck!) & SATA..
Only in the ‘early days’ did raid MFG’s specify drive mfg or model. (Usually because drive MFG’s got ahead of Raid MFG’s Support. Could this also be the case here (no one to test?). Sometimes they put custom firmware in drives (Double Edged Sword!)…. Most always specified identical model & firmware from mfg on each as a minimum.

I fully understand CMR vs SHR…. Issues.

This whole thing is: ‘something else’ (Shades of 1980’s).
I’m glad my drives are 30% full. I didn’t even look to see ‘which list’ they are on. I suspect my 3 NAS’s (2 of which at present are running flawlessly), will remain where they are for a long, long, time!

 

[WST16]

Anyone knows if Synology is actively pushing into the Fortune 500 companies and aggressively marketing their new "enterprise grade" devices, strategies and business continuity solutions?
Are they going against established names like IBM and Oracle and the others who are after the whole stack with their vertical solutions?
In the old days, there was a hardware vendor, a software vendor and a storage vendor. Now each one wants everything. More power to feed the share price furnace.

 

[jeyare]

In this world, it doesn't matter what you do, but what your rating is.

Russell Hanneman top quote from the Silicon Valley:

It's not about how much you earn. It's about what you're worth. And who's worth the most? Companies that lose money. Pintrest, Snapchat, no revenue. Amazon has lost money for every f***ing quarter for the last 20 f***ing years and that Jeff Bezos is the king.

 

[Rusty]

Anyone knows if Synology is actively pushing into the Fortune 500 companies and aggressively marketing their new "enterprise grade" devices, strategies and business continuity solutions?
Are they going against established names like IBM and Oracle and the others who are after the whole stack with their vertical solutions?
In the old days, there was a hardware vendor, a software vendor and a storage vendor. Now each one wants everything. More power to feed the share price furnace.

Good questions. I did get inside info that several big storage companies tried to buy Syno in the past decade (and recently again) but looks like Taiwan doesn't want to hear about it.

 

[WST16]

several big storage companies tried to buy Syno in the past decade (and recently again)

I'm guessing, to cut a long cycle short and get their hands on DSM. Big, established companies might be indifferent to the hardware and might push their own interpretation of what it should be.

 

[jeyare]

@WST16

if Synology is actively pushing into the Fortune 500 companies and aggressively marketing their new "enterprise grade" devices

it all makes sense:
- when you have NAS product portfolio under $5,000 (price point), then you are classified in medium/small business by "respectful" wisdom like Gartner and so on
- then, you need to create few products over the evaluation level, and you are recognised as an enterprise vendor
- then the wisdom can start to write about you in the enterprise segment (first time in 2019)
- then your evaluation grows up
- however, many overlooked that it was just a shot in the dark and Gartner in 2020 pulled Synology out of the enterprise segment (Gartner magic quadrant)
- then, you will prepare a game-changer: your own branded HDDs/SSDs - which will cause even more to be written about you
- and to make matters "better", you will start presenting your rack stations even more than the enterprise with a vendor lock for used elements
- so you get written about you everywhere. Even for free
- which causes interest to be generated.

Syno global revenue in 2017: $300M, an equivalent of 254M Eur today; they wrote in 2018 (France branch announcement) that they sold 6 million NAS globally the same year.
However, this would mean that the average price of one NAS was 42.3 EUR ..... then 600k sold NASes is quite realistic, and the average price of the NAS: 423.3 EUR.

Syno global revenue in 2018: NT$12B, an equivalent of 367M Eur today, which corresponds to near 870k of sold small units (up to 4 bay)

Edit:
Someone who can very well prepare those interested in buying or prepare for the transition to an IPO; someone provides a really good consultation for Syno. Including the great (and indeed great) promotion of the new and revolutionary DSM7, which actually didn't bring anything revolutionary, but it was talked about for 2 years.

 

[WST16]

@jeyare, you‘ve been around the block a few times. You know the game
I like the quotes around “respectful”

 

[jeyare]

@jeyare, you‘ve been around the block a few times. You know the game
I like the quotes around “respectful”

experiences

 

[jeyare]

@jeyare, you‘ve been around the block a few times. You know the game
I like the quotes around “respectful”

Here is another example of what has probably happened in Synology over the last year - nicely explained by the Silicon Valley series:
The Conjoined Triangles of Success

When the quality of Engineering & Manufacturing is on the opposite side of Growth and Sales. Someone in leadership is now focussing more on Growth and Sales than on the "necessary evil" represented by Engineering and Manufacturing. Someone who believes, that improving one corner will devastate the opposite side. Then a compromise from engineering in order to quickly sell the product is necessary.

Jack Barker explains, “The way you keep the best salespeople is to give them something easy to sell, otherwise they go somewhere else.”

and so a box was born that no one wanted:

 

[WST16]

Synology needs to offer something so enticing that the big companies cannot ignore (even to hoping to briefly come up in an internal IT meeting discussion).

The established competition (although at this point it can't be considered as such), will chew them and spit them in every meeting with their big clients. They'll be the joke that the attendees laughs at ignorantly.

I think the biggest hurdle will be support (speed and availability), not something they're known for. The second will be the offering. What are they offering that cannot be fulfilled by the established big vertical solutions players. Why should I bother if I have a one stop shop with all the bells and whistles that come with it (at a premium of course). Even a company like SAP who has no big hardware offering and historically relied (and partnered) with other vendors is trying to push their “own” hardware now.

It's one thing to be successful with home use appliances but to knock on a Fortune 500 company’s door and get in is a different ball game. It might’ve worked 15-20 years ago, but it’s so difficult in this day and age.

If all this noise is aiming to at least score one or two rack servers inside for a secondary, not so important (to the daily operation) task, then they might sell a few here and there, but even that won't be easy.

 

[jeyare]

Synology needs to offer something so enticing that the big companies cannot ignore (even to hoping to briefly come up in an internal IT meeting discussion).

However, in such a case, they must understand that it won't be about backing up photos from a mobile phone and sorting them in the Photos App, which for its operation needs performance incompatible with the mass market requirements for the price of a small NAS.

The established competition (although at this point it can't be considered as such), will chew them and spit them in every meeting with their big clients. They'll be the joke that the attendees laughs at ignorantly.

I wrote about this a long time ago that I do not know a vendor in an enterprise that would offer such a simple and easy non-fulfilment of basic enterprise conditions as Syno.

If all this noise is aiming to at least score one or two rack servers inside for a secondary, not so important (to the daily operation) task, then they might sell a few here and there, but even that won't be easy.

Of course, such boxes will be suitable for mid-size backup companies as usual empty backup nodes only. But, who will want more than one central console to manage all storage nodes?

I am grateful to Synology for providing my home requirements. And I have no reason to change there (yet). I learned to get to know the world of containers. In the corporate area, the biggest advantage for me was the use of containers and Drive. However, one does not deceive performance. And it's not about the CPU or MoBo. It is about the entire DSM architecture, which is unified for the mass market only.

However, the TrueNAS Scale (still in beta) but in one of my VM is under evaluation. Great is the move from BSD to pure Debian - then full Docker support is there. Include more features based on ZFS (advanced BTRFS). Now is the NextCloud under testing. The Rocket chat integration is amazing.

 

[Coop777]

I go two ways with this....Syno is making some very questionable changes with recent updates of DSM. Not encouraging. I would consider moving to something like TrueNAS/FreeNAS but then theres the issue of going back to a glorified PC, parts from different vendors and more work and effort to setup and get running but I can appreciate cost savings and better performance from higher end components.

I specifically went to a vendor supported NAS for the ease of setup and functionality. I'm a at a point with IT in my personal life where I want a single vendor supported box that is fairly easy to setup up and just works....If the NAS fails, Synology replaces it, if I have a drive failure - warranty claim to the vendor. Less overall headache for the day to day.

 

[Rusty]

I'm a at a point with IT in my personal life where I want a single vendor supported box that is fairly easy to setup up and just works

Exactly that

 

[jeyare]

I go two ways with this....Syno is making some very questionable changes with recent updates of DSM. Not encouraging. I would consider moving to something like TrueNAS/FreeNAS but then theres the issue of going back to a glorified PC, parts from different vendors and more work and effort to setup and get running but I can appreciate cost savings and better performance from higher end components.

I specifically went to a vendor supported NAS for the ease of setup and functionality. I'm a at a point with IT in my personal life where I want a single vendor supported box that is fairly easy to setup up and just works....If the NAS fails, Synology replaces it, if I have a drive failure - warranty claim to the vendor. Less overall headache for the day to day.

as I wrote, it is not a unified way for anyone - it very much depends on which operating model suits whom. What data does it process and for what purpose, ...
I found a few significant advantages for me (price is essential, but features are more important) - separate cache for metadata store, a separate cache for a block-based dedupe, a separate cache for the data computation (R, Phyton), ... all based on NVMe support. More power for the ETL process (e.g. formaters from CSV to Parquet) and entire Data-in-place Analytics or partialy by AWS.I found there few important advantages for me (price is important, but features are more important) - More power for the ETL process (e.g. formaters from CSV to Parquet) or Data-in-place Analytics.

 

[jeyare]

seems to be I need switch out my complex considerations, because it make a duplication of my thoughts