# Synology NAS Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/synology-nas/ 27 people recommended Synology NAS in Hacker News comments, 12 had mixed feelings and 34 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 12 months, in 21 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Criticized more than recommended: critics most often cite restrictions on using non-Synology drives; those who recommend it cite easy setup, reliable RAID and BTRFS data recovery, and years of trouble-free running. Summary written by Claude from the comments below. ## What people warn about - Restricts third-party drives and RAM (7 comments in the sample): "Synology tried to vendor-lock their customers for profit, and even though they didn't follow through, they told us what they stand for" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48125196)) "mainly because of other issues like they restricting what RAM I can use or what I want to use the M2 slots for" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46914024)) "I know Synology's considered an evil company now because they seem to tie you to their own hard drives now" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47772481)) - Hard to run newer containers (3 comments in the sample): "expecting to use an appliance that happens to be Linux-based as a generic Linux server is going to lead to challenges" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46900127)) "it’s not perfect, i need to run more on the synology than is ideal for containerized reliability reasons" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50032117)) "The extremely old kernel on Synology makes it hard or impossible to run some containers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46899131)) - Bad updates and power loss issues (2 comments in the sample): "I had an synology NAS power blip which caused a long term time machine to become completely corrupt" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49744013)) "something happened w/ an apparently customer-hostile update bc the drive no longer mounts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47551110)) - Priced high for hardware (2 comments in the sample): "NAS products like Synology that are sold with a high markup" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46586711)) "QNAP and Synology pricing is rent seeking behavior on per drive bay pricing models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46282665)) ## Why people recommend it - Reliable, long-lasting hardware (5 comments in the sample): "For this purpose, I find Synology rock solid and I’ve been very happy with them." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46898479)) "I love synology; bought one around 2018, runs nicely until this day" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46071635)) "10+ years uptime if you leave it alone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46898867)) - Easy setup and low maintenance (4 comments in the sample): "you can literally forget that it’s not someone else’s cloud. It auto updates on Sundays, always comes online again" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066579)) "Synology NASes have a super, super easy to setup way to do all of this stuff" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46255913)) "just buy some 1-2 bay Synology and forget about it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46065595)) - Replaces cloud storage at home (3 comments in the sample): "For your use case have you thought about VPN into your local network, via e.g. a Synology box…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45947801)) "I've been very content moving away from OneDrive/GDrive to a personal NAS setup with Synology/Ugreen." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47766243)) "all it took was buying a consumer Syno NAS, turning on the VPN server and connecting a DDNS service" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46029737)) - Expandable storage for many drives (3 comments in the sample): "You can get the 8-bay Synology, with its two expansion chassis that's room for about eighteen 24tb drives." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48507472)) "It'll hold an eighth of a petabyte pretty comfortably (with sufficient redundancy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214526)) "doubled my overall available storage space" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48507724)) ## What people recommend instead - [Ubiquiti UNAS Pro](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ubiquiti-unas-pro/): 7 recommend, 2 mixed, 6 criticize ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.synology.com/en-global) ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Synology NAS", https://hackerapproved.com/p/synology-nas/ (27 recommend, 12 mixed, 34 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 3 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.