Synology caused surprise and disappointment by blocking third-party storage on new NAS devices since April. The company is now reversing that policy.
“Unverified drives,” or storage from vendors other than Synology, lacked certain capabilities for the 2025 Plus series. For example, the health status could not be read, and the creation of storage pools using RAID technology was artificially blocked. These capabilities have now been re-enabled.
Sales under pressure
The reason for the reversal is likely to be disappointing sales figures. Nas Compares reported that sources in Europe and the United States spoke of DiskStation sales that were “a fraction” of those in 2024. This dramatic decline is said to have been the deciding factor in revising the drive restrictions.
Quiet return to flexibility
In DiskStation Manager (DSM) 7.3, Synology has removed the restrictions. The new firmware version offers full support for third-party hard drives and 2.5-inch SATA SSDs. For M.2/NVMe drives, validation is still required for advanced features.
No further explanation has been given for this change of course. Synology had previously promised that an “appliance model” would make the lock-in worthwhile, with up to 40 percent fewer storage problems. That promise now seems to have been abandoned. Models from 2025 running DSM 7.3 will once again be able to create storage pools with non-validated drives.
From limitations to problems
In April of this year, Synology announced that new NAS models from the 2025 Plus series would only function fully with validated drives. Users who installed their own hard drives were shown warnings and lost access to essential features such as storage pools and drive health reports. The policy change applied to devices such as the DS925+ and DS1825+, while older models and the J series were spared.