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 2021and 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 testingthat, when coupled with customized firmware, yielded reliability and performance improvements over off-the-shelf components.