02 February 2021

Synology to enforce use of validated disks in its NAS. And guess what? Only its own disks exceed 4TB

Synology has introduced its first-ever list of validated disks and won’t allow other devices into its enterprise-class NAS devices. And in a colossal coincidence, half of the disks allowed into its devices – and the only ones larger than 4TB – are Synology’s very own HAT 5300 disks that it launched last week.

Seeing as privately held Synology is thought to have annual revenue of around US$350m, rather less than the kind of cash required to get into the hard disk business, The Register inquired if it had really started making drives or found some other way into the industry.

The Taiwanese network-attached-storage vendor told us the drives are Synology-branded Toshiba kit, though it has written its own drive firmware and that the code delivers sequential read performance 23 per cent beyond comparable drives. Synology told us its branded disks will also be more reliable because they have undergone extensive testing in the company’s own NAS arrays.

Slightly worrying - but this only applies to Synology's enterprise-class NAS devices - their "Big Iron". So the "smaller stuff" for Personal & Home User, IT Enthusiast, Small and Midsize Business - you can still use WD or Seagate branded approved Hard Drives. Phew!

www.theregister.com


No comments:

Post a Comment