Synology brings severe hard drive limitations to DiskStation models, and I’m pissed

Synology makes the best Plex NAS servers, and I’ve used its products for over a decade now. While the brand doesn’t have class-leading hardware, its software suite continues to be the best in the industry, and its NAS servers have been reliable. Currently, I use the DiskStation DS1823xs+ as my main NAS, housing over 140TB of data, and I have a DS1621xs+ as a secondary NAS containing over 80TB of data.

Synology had a quiet 2024, but the brand is gearing up to launch its 2025 portfolio soon. But when the new Plus series models come out, there will be a significant limitation: these DiskStation models will be compatible with Synology’s first-party drives, and not the best NAS HDDs from Seagate and Western Digital.

Synology started enforcing this on its business-centric NAS models back in 2021 — which is incidentally when it introduced its own drives — but it mentioned at the time that the move wouldn’t affect the consumer DiskStation series. But at the same time, the brand significantly reduced the number of eligible third-party IronWolf and WD Red models, and now it is entirely walking back earlier claims and limiting its DiskStation Plus series to its own drives.

From the press release (in German): “For users, this means that starting with the Plus series models released in 2025, only Synology’s own hard drives and third-party hard drives certified according to Synology’s specifications will be compatible and offer the full range of functions and support.”

The brand notes that this is only valid with Plus models debuting in 2025 and later, so the existing portfolio consisting of the DiskStation DS923+, DS224+, DS723+, and all other models are unaffected. Synology also noted that migrating drives from an existing NAS to a 2025 Plus server won’t incur any restrictions: “There will be no changes for Plus models released up to and including 2024 (excluding the XS Plus series and rack models). Furthermore, migrating hard drives from existing Synology NAS to a new Plus model will continue to be possible without restrictions.”

Basically, if you use anything other than a Synology-branded hard drive in the 2025 DiskStation Plus models, you won’t be able to use key features like volume-wide deduplication, lifespan analysis, and automatic hard drive firmware updates. Synology says it is making this change to “reduce compatibility issues and increase system reliability,” but the real reason has to do with money — the brand would rather you buy its own drives instead of Seagate and WD’s products.

In a statement, Synology said that it conducted 7,000 hours of rigorous testing with its own hard drives in conjunction with the upcoming DiskStation Plus models, and that in general it saw a “20% reduction in support tickets related to storage and drive issues when using Synology’s HDDs.”

It is understandable that the brand is trying to provide a tighter integration between its drives and NAS servers, but the choice should ultimately be made by the user. As someone who uses Seagate’s IronWolf and Exos drives extensively alongside Toshiba and WD Red HDDs, I don’t want to be shoehorned into selecting just one drive.

I’ve always recommended Synology NAS servers for their robust feature-set and ease of use, but this deliberate user-hostile move has me rethinking that decision. I’ll await judgement until I get my hands on the Plus models (they’re debuting shortly), but as an enthusiast, I can’t help but feel that Synology is abandoning its loyal userbase just to eke out additional profits.