[German]U-turn after massive customer protests and probably also customer loss. The provider Synology has largely withdrawn its "hard drive requirement," which had only recently been established for NAS Plus models.
Review: Suddenly new hard drive requirements
I addressed this issue in May 2025 in my German blog postÄrger durch Festplatten-Zwang bei neuen Synology NAS Plus-Modellen. Synology had announced "hard drive requirements." Only NAS devices with compatible (certified) hard drive models would be able to use the full range of functions of upcoming NAS devices. This was to affect future models in the Plus series. However, there was an outcry from users, as very few hard drive models were approved.
Third-party drives will be allowed
On October 8, 2025, Synology released the new version of DiskStation Manager DSM 7.3-81180. This is the operating system for all Synology NAS systems. The Marius Hosting website has provided the Synology DSM 7.3-81180 press release as a PDF version in this article. It includes the following passage:
Synology is currently collaborating closely with third-party drive manufacturers to accelerate the testing and verification of additional storage drives, and will announce more updates as soon as possible. In the meantime, 25 model year DiskStation Plus, Value, and J series running DSM 7.3 will support the installation and storage pool creation of non-validated thirdparty drives. This provides users greater flexibility while Synology continues to expand the lineup of officially verified drives that meet long-term reliability standards.
In summary: Synology is currently working closely with third-party drive manufacturers to accelerate the testing and verification of additional storage drives and will announce further updates as soon as possible. The only limitation (according to footnote 1) is that the creation of an M.2-based storage pool and cache still requires drives on the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL).
The website nascompares.com has compiled some information in the article SYNOLOGY SUPPORT SEAGATE & WD AGAIN – TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?
