Synology abandons drive restrictions after 2025 NAS sales collapse
Six-month experiment in vendor lock-in ends as technically proficient users migrate to alternatives
Synology's DiskStation Manager 7.3 arrived on 8 October with no fanfare, no apology, no acknowledgement of what it represented. The release notes described "expanded certification" of storage media. What actually happened: Synology surrendered.
For six months, the company locked its 2025 NAS models to proprietary drives only. Insert a Seagate IronWolf or Western Digital Red—drives explicitly designed for network storage—and the DS925+ simply refused to proceed. Error message. No override. Your only option was buying Synology-branded drives at substantial markups, despite those drives containing identical hardware from the same manufacturers the system just rejected.
This wasn't a subtle policy shift. It was Synology betting twenty years of reputation on a simple wager: customers had nowhere else to go.
They were catastrophically wrong.
Synology built its business on openness. For two decades, it offered sophisticated software without forcing proprietary hardware down customers' throats. That flexibility attracted a specific user base—technically capable people who could build their own storage servers but chose not to because Synology made it unnecessary. These weren't ordinary consumers. They were IT professionals, software developers, data hoarders who knew exactly what RAID configurations they wanted and why.
Synology's leadership apparently forgot this. Or perhaps they noticed that printer manufacturers make excellent margins on proprietary ink and thought: why not us?
The lock-in gambit
Android Central's reviewer encountered the block immediately. The DS925+ flatly refused Seagate IronWolf drives—hardware specifically engineered for NAS applications, compatible with every previous Synology generation. The device displayed an error and stopped. No discussion.
For existing customers, the policy created instant chaos. Users maintaining mixed-brand arrays to reduce correlated failures faced forced standardisation. People who spent hours researching drive performance characteristics discovered their work meant nothing. Synology would dictate choices regardless of technical merit.
The economics revealed everything the company wouldn't say. Synology doesn't manufacture storage—it rebrands Toshiba and Seagate drives with modified firmware and adds substantial markups. A 4TB Synology drive could cost £100 more than an equivalent IronWolf. Fill an eight-bay system and you've paid an extra £800 for components from the same factories.
Within days, technical forums found workarounds requiring SSH access and script injection to bypass the compatibility database. The irony was perfect: the company selling ease of use now demanded command-line expertise for basic functionality. Why buy a turnkey NAS if using it requires the exact skills it was meant to replace?
Learning from the wrong industry
The strategy looked familiar: printer manufacturers perfected vendor lock-in decades ago. HP, Canon, Brother all follow the same playbook—sell printers cheap, make profits on proprietary cartridges, use firmware updates to disable third-party alternatives. It works spectacularly well.
But printer lock-in succeeds because specific conditions exist that don't apply to network storage. Most printer buyers lack technical sophistication and face limited alternatives. When HP blocks third-party ink through a firmware update, consumers grumble but comply. They lack both expertise and viable options.
The NAS market runs backwards. Anyone researching network storage solutions understands RAID configurations, filesystem options, network protocols. Most could build their own servers using standard components and TrueNAS. They choose Synology because convenience previously outweighed flexibility. That calculation collapses the moment convenience becomes compulsion.
The competitive landscape bears no resemblance to printers either. Whilst HP, Canon, Epson, and Brother form an effective cartel maintaining similar restrictions, the NAS market includes numerous manufacturers competing on openness. QNAP, Asustor, TerraMaster, UGREEN—all permit standard drives. When one vendor attempts proprietary restrictions, customers don't face equally restrictive alternatives. They just leave.
Perfect timing for disaster
Synology's timing was exquisite—in the way disasters are exquisite. They implemented restrictions precisely as credible alternatives reached market viability, handing frustrated customers convenient exit options at the worst possible moment.
UGREEN, previously known for charging cables, launched comprehensive NAS systems featuring modern Intel processors, DDR5 memory, and Thunderbolt 4 connectivity. The DXP4800 Plus offers specifications that make comparable Synology units look antiquated. Zero restrictions on storage media. Install any drive, any manufacturer. UGREEN even officially supports installing TrueNAS whilst maintaining warranty coverage.
Ubiquiti entered storage in 2024 with the UNAS Pro—seven bays, dual 10-gigabit Ethernet, $499. The software remains less developed than Synology's mature platform, but the hardware value proved compelling for users prioritising raw capacity over application versatility. For customers burned by Synology's restrictions, the UNAS Pro arrived exactly when needed.
TrueNAS simultaneously reached a polish level that made self-built systems genuinely accessible. Simplified installation, comprehensive documentation, abundant mini-PC hardware with multiple SATA ports—DIY storage became viable for users who previously needed commercial solutions.
Five years earlier—before UGREEN expanded beyond accessories, before Ubiquiti entered storage, before TrueNAS simplified deployment—customers would have faced a bleak landscape. Instead, the 2025 timing transformed potential acquiescence into exodus. Technical review sites that previously recommended Synology by default began featuring comparison videos highlighting competitors' flexibility.
When reversing course isn't enough
Sales of Synology's 2025 models collapsed. Multiple industry reports described figures as "a fraction of the previous year". The company disabled comments on promotional videos, issued contradictory statements, and faced sustained criticism from previously supportive technical media. Exact numbers remain undisclosed—Synology is privately held—but the reversal speaks volumes about internal panic.
DSM 7.3 represents complete technical surrender. Third-party drives now install without warnings, with full monitoring and storage features restored. For users who delayed purchases, the update theoretically restores the status quo.
But functionality isn't trust. Synology never acknowledged the policy as a mistake. No apology to affected customers. The change was framed purely as expanded certification rather than strategic retreat. This suggests leadership views the episode as a tactical failure rather than fundamental error in understanding their market position.
For customers who already migrated, the timing stings. They researched alternatives, purchased new hardware, migrated terabytes of data, reconfigured networks—precisely because Synology's direction appeared irreversible. They invested significant time and money escaping what seemed like permanent lock-in. Months later, they discover waiting would have sufficed.
More fundamentally, the episode revealed something unforgivable: Synology's willingness to exploit market position at customer expense. The company that built loyalty through openness demonstrated it would abandon that principle the moment leadership believed they could extract additional revenue without consequence. Restrictions removed, that revelation stands. Trust accumulated over twenty years evaporated in six months.
Technical communities remember betrayals. When QNAP suffered ransomware vulnerabilities from poor security practices, reputation damage persisted for years despite improvements. When Western Digital surreptitiously shipped SMR drives in NAS products, enthusiasts blacklisted the company permanently. Synology now occupies similar territory—a brand whose actions demonstrated contempt for customer intelligence, even if temporarily reversed.
A technically brilliant blind spot
Synology's strategic failure is particularly baffling given the company's technical pedigree. Founders Philip Wong and Cheen Liao left Microsoft in 2000, with Liao bringing software development rigour from managing Exchange Server development. The company built its reputation on sophisticated yet accessible software, developing DiskStation Manager into one of the industry's most polished operating systems.
Yet technically competent leadership greenlit a strategy ignoring elementary market dynamics. Either executives genuinely believed customers lacked alternatives and capability, or they understood the risks and deemed potential profit worth alienating core users. Neither reflects well on judgement.
The company's rotating CEO structure, implemented by Wong in 2007, may foster dysfunction. When senior employees serve temporary terms as chief executive before returning to operational roles, long-term strategic thinking potentially suffers favouring short-term targets. A CEO demonstrating value during limited tenure might prioritise immediate revenue over brand equity.
Additionally, Synology's Taiwanese domestic market represents just 3.6 per cent of revenue, with the vast majority from international sales. This geographical distribution might create distance between leadership and customer sentiment, particularly in technically sophisticated Western markets where users possess both alternatives and vocal platforms.
Whatever the internal dynamics, the outcome demonstrates a fundamental truth: technical expertise in product development doesn't automatically translate to understanding customer relationships or market positioning. A company can build excellent software whilst simultaneously destroying the trust that made customers willing to invest in that ecosystem. Synology managed precisely that.
Broader lessons in technical markets
Synology's debacle offers lessons extending well beyond network storage. Vendor lock-in strategies succeeding in mass consumer markets frequently fail catastrophically when applied to technical products purchased by sophisticated users.
In mass markets, customer inertia, limited alternatives, and low technical confidence allow manufacturers to implement restrictions with impunity. Users grumble but comply because switching costs exceed tolerance. Printer manufacturers exploit these dynamics ruthlessly and profitably.
In technical markets, customer expertise, abundant alternatives, and active research behaviour invert the equation. Attempted lock-in doesn't generate compliance—it triggers migration. Users possess both capability and motivation to escape, and competitors eagerly accommodate exodus. The very characteristics making technical users valuable customers—higher spending, sophisticated requirements, sustained engagement—also make them catastrophically expensive to alienate.
Brand trust in technical markets accumulates slowly through consistent behaviour over extended periods. Synology spent twenty years building reputation for openness. That equity evaporated in months once actions contradicted positioning. The reversal restores functionality but cannot restore reputation, because customers now know what leadership considers acceptable when they believe they can escape consequences.
Timing matters enormously. Synology attempted lock-in as competition reached viability, transforming potential frustration into convenient departure. Earlier timing with less developed alternatives might have generated different outcomes. But in rapidly evolving technical markets, competitors continuously improve, and yesterday's monopolistic opportunity becomes today's strategic disaster.
The episode demonstrates that technical competence and market understanding are distinct capabilities. A company can employ brilliant engineers, ship sophisticated products, and still fundamentally misunderstand customer relationships. Leadership confusing technical excellence with invulnerability to market forces risks discovering customers value having choices more than any particular vendor's implementation.
Synology restored third-party drive support, but the company emerging from this episode differs fundamentally from the one that enjoyed customers' trust. Whether they recognise that distinction remains unclear. The quiet reversal suggests they don't fully grasp what they've lost, or perhaps hope customers will simply forget.
In technical markets, sophisticated users don't forget betrayals. They remember precisely which vendors respected their intelligence, and which ones didn't.
