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

Synology Plus Series NAS devices released in 2025 onwards require the use of specific pre-approved drives to obtain full or any functionality. New non-approved drives are unusable, and drives migrated from older models will be blocked from functions often seen as essential, including estimated drive health reports and automatic firmware updates.

Background

Synology manufactures and sells network-attached storage (NAS) devices, which allow users to store large amounts of data without having to sign up for cloud-based subscription services. NAS devices require drives to operate, which can be purchased from a variety of different brands, such Western Digital and Seagate. Synology also offers drives themselves, though the company doesn't manufacture its own drives, instead repackaging drives from existing vendors.

Enterprise NAS drive lock-in

In February 2021, Synology released three new enterprise NAS devices. These devices were the first to follow a compatibility whitelist, where drives not listed would not be supported. Additional devices would release the following year with similar restrictions.

Some restrictions on unsupported drives were removed in a firmware update released in 2022, though the overall concept still remained.

Restrictions of this kind are typically more widely accepted on enterprise-level equipment, as they better ensure vendor support in most cases.

Plus Series devices from 2025 onward

In April 2025, it was reported that NAS devices in the Plus Series would be subject to a drive compatibility whitelist similar to that seen in enterprise devices. This can be seen on Synology's compatibility list page. The first Plus Series NAS to incorporate such a whitelist is the DS925+, which released on May 3, 2025. At launch, only Synology-branded drives were supported, though the company pledged to later add a compatibility framework for third-party drives, and claimed that users could submit drives for testing.

At time of writing (June 2025), users report that if a new unsupported drive is inserted into an affected NAS device, it will appear as unrecognized, blocking DSM installation and rendering the drive unusable. If this is the only drive in the device, the NAS itself is effectively unusable as well.

Unsupported drives can regain some functionality by migrating from a Synology NAS device that still fully supports it, but several functions are restricted that are often considered essential, including creating storage pools, drive health reports, deduplication, lifespan analyses, and automatic firmware updates.

There is an open source project dedicated to bypassing these restrictions, although this is not officially supported and could be patched by Synology in future updates, so users should use this at their own discretion.

Synology claimed users would benefit from improved performance, reliability, compatibility, and support as a result of this change.

Consumer response

Responses to this change have been mixed. Some speculate that the move to only supporting certified hardware is to ensure that connected drives support the features that were restricted, especially deduplication. Concerns have also been raised about shipping times and the potential for supply chain issues to affect the ability for first-party drives to remain in stock.

Consumer impact

This change impacts potential purchasers of Synology consumer-grade NAS devices, as their ability to use third-party drives has been considerably diminished, reducing choice and increasing vendor lock-in. It is currently unclear whether this policy will affect consumer-grade NAS devices outside of the company's Plus Series.