Synology caves, walks back some drive restrictions on upcoming NAS models

If you were considering the purchase of a Synology NAS but were leery of the unreasonably high cost of populating it with special Synology-branded hard disk drives, you can breathe a little easier today. In a press release dated October 8, Synology noted that with the release of its latest Disk Station Manager (DSM) update, some of its 2025 model-year products—specifically, the Plus, Value, and J-series DiskStation NAS devices—would "support the installation and storage pool creation of non-validated third-party drives."

This unexpected move comes just a few months after Synology aggressively expanded its "verified drive" policy down-market to the entire Plus line of DiskStations. Prior to today, the network-attached storage vendor had shown no signs of swerving from the decision, painting it as a pro-consumer move intended to enhance reliability. "Extensive internal testing has shown that drives that follow a rigorous validation process when paired with Synology systems are at less risk of drive failure and ongoing compatibility issues," Synology previously claimed in an email to Ars.

What is a “verified” or “validated” drive?

Synology first released its own brand of hard disk drives back in 2021 and began requiring their use in a small but soon-to-increase number of its higher-end NAS products. Although the drives were rebadged offerings from other manufacturers—there are very few hard disk drive OEMs, and Synology isn't one of them—the company claimed that its branded disks underwent significant additional validation and testing that, when coupled with customized firmware, yielded reliability and performance improvements over off-the-shelf components.

However, those drives came with what was in some cases a substantial price increase over commodity hardware. Although I couldn't find an actual published MSRP list, some spot checking on several web stores shows that the Synology HAT5310 enterprise SATA drive (a drive with the same warranty and expected service life as a Seagate Exos or Western Digital Gold) is available in 8TB at $299, 12TB at $493, and 20TB at an eye-watering $605. (For comparison, identically sized Seagate Exos disks are $220 at 8TB, $345 at 12TB, and $399 at 20TB.) Other Synology drive models tell similar pricing stories.