Synology

Synology

Basic information
Founded	2000
Legal Structure	Private
Industry	Computing, Storage
Also known as
Official website	https://www.synology.com/

Synology is a Taiwanese corporation that specializes in network-attached storage (NAS) appliances.

They have built a reputation for using open standards (eg. relying on standard Linux RAID instead of proprietary RAID like QNAP), providing feature and security updates for a very long time (in some cases offering security fixes for 12 year old hardware) and offering replacement parts for a long time and at a reasonable cost.

Recently the business has had a shift towards blocking third-party drives on their NAS systems.

• User freedom: Revoked ability to use off-brand hard drives from modern NAS models^[1] and has as of October 8th 2025 been reversed^[2]
• User privacy: Unknown.
• Business model: Selling digital storage devices to consumers.
• Market control: Limited; notable amount of competition from other brands such as QNAP, UGreen, Western Digital, Samsung, and SanDisk.

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Synology category.

Synology announced that effective with the DSM 7.3 update, Synology Mail Station and Synology Mail Server would be replaced by Synology Mail Plus and Synology Mail Plus Server. The old programs would continue to function after the update, but would be blocked in subsequent updates and no longer receive security updates, rendering them factually useless in production use.^[3]

The replacement apps are limited to five e-mail accounts per device. Any more require purchase of additional licenses.^[4] The previous applications imposed no such limit and were only bounded by the physical capabilities of the hardware.

This forces customers who purchased a NAS from Synology with the intention of using it as a mail server for more than five mail accounts to pay again for additional licenses, at the terms dictated by Synology, if they wish to continue to use e-mail server functionality of their NAS after the DSM 7.3 update.

This marks a departure from past policies. For instance, in 2021 Synology removed the requirement for licenses for site-to-site VPNs when the Covid19 pandemic hit, and it has been free ever since.^[5]

Synology removed Hardware transcoding drivers for HEVC (H.265), AVC (H.264), and VC-1 [1]. With these drivers removed, the external device receiving the video becomes responsible for transcoding. There is an unofficial guide on how to reinstall the drivers.[2]

Main article: Synology requiring proprietary-branded drives to be used with its NAS

Further reading: Guide: How to circumvent Synology hard drive restrictions

For the Plus Series of NAS systems, Synology required the use of their own rebranded hard drives in order to obtain full functionality.^[1]

Reported by Hardwareluxx, using non-Synology-branded hard drives will lose critical functions for the NAS, including estimated hard drive health reports, volume-wide deduplication, lifespan analyses, and automatic firmware updates. The company also restricts storage pools and provides limited or zero support for third-party drives.^[6]

The models manufactured on or before 2024 are not affected by this change. Still, those upgrading to or purchasing the latest Plus Series device, set to be released this year, will have to buy their drives directly from Synology or its certified suppliers to maximize their system. Because of this, you won’t be able to pick from the best hard drives if you get Synology’s latest Plus Series NAS Systems.^[1]

This can currently be circumvented at the user's own risk with a hack using a script available on Github that adds the drives in the system to the list of compatible drives. Other solutions use changes to configuration files to disable the checks.^[7] However, these workarounds may cease to function at any time or have unexpected side effects or consequences.

As of 8th October 2025 this has been partly reversed^[2]. Only 2025 models allow third-party drives "and do not apply retroactively to previously launched systems." Even on 2025 systems there is still a requirement for M.2 drives to be on Compatibility List for the use as a cache drive. [3]

Some of the 2015 series NAS devices from Synology used an Intel C2000 series processor, which, due to a clock issue on Intel's side, would cease to function after a certain time. Synology did replace affected devices if they failed within the warranty period, but the replacements were identical devices that had the same defect and would again cease to function after a certain amount of time.

The issue can be permanently fixed by installing a simple resistor on the main board of the device. This requires basic soldering skills.^[8]

Unlike on competing products, It is not easily possible to install a Linux distribution other than the manufacturer's DSM. This makes it difficult to repurpose the devices for other uses or install alternative software when support runs out for the manufacturer's OS. The devices also have no video output, thus limiting other uses.^[9]

• Plus-Series NAS: In 2025, new Plus-Series NAS systems can only support proprietary hard drives.

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