May I be of assistance?
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Of course, all help and information is welcome.
Other members have explained why the DS425+ is better than the DS925+.
I do have the following question:
I want to install a WD Red Pro 22TB HDD, but Synology has never tested it. They have tested their own Synology 20TB drives. But Synology also states in the NAS specifications that you can use 100TB per drive. I don’t expect any problems with 22TB; that hasn’t been tested.
All the new Synology models require Synology-labeled drives.
DSM won’t create volumes on non-Synology drives.
This is the biggest problem folks are finding with them
Please examine this list:
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I have non Synology drives and have no issues creating volumes on them. I am using the latest DSM.
@lotusvball
Please confirm you have a 2025-series Synology?
I have 2 older Syno units here which don’t have Syno drives.
Synology-labeled drives is a recent change in their products (2025-series)
The volume setup is control in the DSM. Is there somewhere that states they are preventing this in the bios. I have not seen users mention this and I know this would be a complete no go for many users.
This is what I have found.
Synology’s new Plus Series NAS systems, designed for small and medium enterprises and advanced home users, can no longer use non-Synology or non-certified hard drives and get the full feature set of their device. Instead, Synology customers will have to use the company’s self-branded hard drives. While you can still use non-supported drives for storage, Hardwareluxx [machine translated] reports that you’ll lose several critical functions, including estimated hard drive health reports, volume-wide deduplication, lifespan analyses, and automatic firmware updates. The company also restricts storage pools and provides limited or zero support for third-party drives.
They are killing themselves. I will never upgrade to a newer NAS that requires their drives. way to costly.
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Also found this:
Nevertheless, there is still a way you can circumvent this hard drive requirement. If you’re using an “unsupported” hard drive with an already existing Synology NAS system and migrate it to a new Plus model, you can continue using it without any restrictions. So, you can first set up a non-Synology hard drive in an older Synology NAS system (or ask someone with one to do it for you), and then you can “migrate” the empty drive to your new one, thus saving you some money. However, that obviously isn’t an option for the overwhelming majority of the company’s customers.
This is the “No Sale” point for most. You cannot buy a new model and use your drive of choice.
If the older drive fails, you would need to use their private-labeled drive to rebuild the volume.
Recommend: E-bay or other 3rd-party resellers with new old stock
■■■■, are you serious about saying you can only use a Synology HDD? Or haven’t others just been tested?
I currently have a DS220+ with a Western Digital HDD. According to Synology, I can use HDDs that aren’t on the compatibility list. This doesn’t mean they won’t work, just that they haven’t been tested.
But are you saying that the software now says the NAS won’t work with non-Synology HDDs?
Yes, they’re killing themselves. No one wants to be forced or restricted. And Western Digital HDD is simply one of the best.
You can only CREATE a new volume using Synology-labeled drives on the new NAS models.
DSM 7.2.1 has a firmware restriction enforcing this.
How do you mean create a new volume?
I’m not that well-versed in this stuff. If you put an HDD in slot 1, does it work or it doesnt work ?
When you put drives into the NAS, you either:
- Initialize the drive , as a single drive, it is formatted and gets labeled as a ‘volume’ (usable storage)
- Put a bunch of them into a RAID set (usually SHR or RAID) which then builds into a “big hard drive” (logical versus physical). It’s then formatted and labeled to make it assessible.
Here’s my 4-bay Synology
Drives 1 & 2 form “Storage Pool 1” (block of storage) which is then formatted and made available to use as Volume1
Similarly with Drives 3 & 4.
If I wanted,
- I could have 4 individual drives (not much benefit here),
- I could make two storage volumes (two logical drives to use)
- I could use all four as one storage volume (one bigger logical drive to use)
There’s an easy way to calculate how much space you’ll get from the variety of ways you could configure it.
This is my home-built nas.
You can see where I group all 12 drives into 1 virtual / logical drive.
I then format it and make it usable as one “Big Honkin’ Disk” of 110 TB
Okay, yes, building my own NAS is better, but I have no idea how, and I don’t know how the interface works like it does with the current fast connection from Synology.
I currently have the DS220+, a 2-bay NAS with two WD Red 6TB HDDs.
I now want a 4-bay NAS with two 20TB HDDs and the two 6TB HDDs I already have. I want all four drives separately, like I have now (basic).
But the data on the 2x 6TB HDD must not be deleted
I’d like to add something: I bought a Plex Pass for a month to try it out. It does transcode the movie, but it uses 94% of the CPU. Isn’t that a bit much? If I watch movies often and all evening, I think my NAS wears out pretty quickly because it runs at that much percentage for so many hours. I had already turned the movie off and then it even went up to 98%. This is a bit crazy.
With another film, I get this at some point. But I don’t really like high peaks.
One benefit of Synology:
You can take the existing drives from the 220 and put them directly into the newer bigger unit. Synology Assistant will help you “migrate” the drives from the 220+ to the new firmware for the new NAS.
To educate:
- Partition 1 = DSM operating system
- Partition 2 = Swap space (for the apps when running)
- Partition 3 = User data storage space (this is what we see & use)
When we move from NAS → NAS model, All we do is install the new firmware in partition 1. All the application data (Your Plex server’s data) is stored in partition 3 – which is never touched during migration.
After you signed up for PlexPass, did you restart PMS ?
I ask because 94% is high.
You need to restart PMS so it knows you have a PlexPass.
Also , you should go into Settings - server - Transcoder - Show Advanced
and make certain the “Use Hardare” options are enabled. They might not be given you started not having a PlexPass.
What is pms?
What is the max cpu % before i must worry about it?
PMS = Plex Media Server
Oh haha. I restarted the NAS, but one movie is at around 50% CPU usage and the other at 80%, and it still stutters.
Also, since the Plex card, the read and write volume is very high. This also causes the HDD to wear out faster, I think? As it stands now, a Plex subscription really doesn’t add any value.
If I convert a movie on the computer and then play it with Plex, I think it is much friendlier to my NAS (the second half of the graph)
Please download the server logs (Settings - Server - Troubleshooting (lower left panel) - Download Logs
It will give you a ZIP file
Attach it here please
