Synology Reviews 291

Synologys arrogant approach to using only their drives cost my client and myself a lot of $$. We have over 35 NAS units of all models in use, and i can assure you that there will be no more. Support is slow to reply, constantly giving me instructions (the same over and over) and when i have something to update them with, i wait a day and any one could reply, and it all starts again.

Its time to move to QNap and recent experience tells me that these are so easy to set up and run well.

Go away Synology!

I have 2 NAS from Synology and a Synology Router. I am very happy with the stability and performance of the products. My 2 NAS are running without problems for years. And the router has a great User interface which allows to easily set all the need settings.
Thank you. Great products!

I am able to understand all IT manuals or instructions.
Except for the Synology manual.
It appears to be written by experts for partial experts.
Full of technical language and abbreviations.
Poor direction and little intelligent use of FAQ or frequent problems.

If you are buying one, factor in the cost of paying an expert to set it up.

It seems a good device, based on reviews and recommendations.
However, I cannot recommend it as it is like buying a house but not having access to most of the rooms.
Please spend more time and money on writing your manuals.

We cannot access our Synology NAS from anyway save home.

My dominant experience of this device is frustration.
Repeated and high levels.

A company that does not value its customers.
IT and the Support at great.
But the people at the top are destroying the company with their short term vision.
The fact that we can't put any other hard drive than the Synology branded ones is wild:
What happens the day I need a hard drive and you can't provide one? Either because you're
-out of stock
-not delivering in my country
-or worst, bankrupt (10 years from now, not unlikely)

I'll tell you what happens then:
I lose all my data!

Great security. Easy to use. I would give me 10 star if I could.

Bought a €1000,00 unit from Alternate. Stopped working after 6 months completely. Alternate told me this is a manufacturer defect and needs to be properly handled by the Manufacturer. I hit up Synology they at first seem nice they want to help ask me Serial Number and Receipt i provide them all. And then they tell me to solve this with Alternate after telling them 100 times Alternate could not help they still tell me they are unwilling to help and i should contact the Retailer they clearly don't understand what Manufacturer warranty means. Now i am stuck with a broken server which was used for our company they don't seem to care at all about you or your business. Do not buy a server from their brand when it breaks you are left empty handed! No support, no repair or replacement nothing!

I hope Synology sees this and finally takes me serious! Because i am pissed off!

I bought the Synology BeeStation NAS. I only wanted network storage and it worked fine, and I would have given 5 stars but the documentation missed something critical that wasted my time.

I deeply regret spending thousands of dollars on this piece of junk, and I’m convinced all the positive reviews are paid for, because this system is HELL! It’s so poorly designed — even after going through countless settings, family members still can’t log in. The admin panel shows a user is added, but they can’t access anything.

It’s made in such a way that you’re forced to use an entirely separate app just to confirm your identity and log in — and even that process is far from easy and often doesn’t work. This device is total garbage, and I don’t understand how so many people are buying it — I fell for it because of what were probably sponsored YouTube videos.

I have had incorrect dates and times on my files for a while without Synology being able to fix the problem.

Most recently, all files have the same date because a battery needs to be replaced. In total, there are about 60,000 files with incorrect dates.

My conclusion is that their NAS cannot be used as a file server on a macOS system.

Long term Synology user. Problems with the router, had contact finally ram memory died. Just out of warranty, just a device of 320 euro ready for the trash bin. Older routers worked for over 8 years, wich seems my kinda normal! Nothing to compensate and wanted to buy an new nas also, but with this experience and the fact they only accept there own hard drives I don't want to trow away money again. Wil relay on my old good 14+!

Been somewhat happy with my NAS for years, but thinking about upgrading. But newer models will only support their own, whitelabel harddrives. Anti-consumer, profit maximizing.

Would i like to upgrade my DS918+?
Yes
Do i want to throw out my 24 TB of drives, and pay overprice for theirs?
No.

I am a loyal Synology customer who has happily purchased multiple Synology NAS units over the years and been very happy. If you had asked me 12 months ago, I would have left 5 stars. However, it's truly DISAPPOINTING the greed and gaslighting we've seen from Synology management in recent times to maximise profits at all costs.

Locking down Synology units to only use ONE single brand of hard drive (your own) with zero option for customers to chose the HDD that best meets their own personal needs. Seriously? Your marketing department claims that your own re-branded hard drives are apparently more reliable but refuse to release any data to support this claim. Do you really think we are that silly? If reliability (not profit) was truly the reason, then you would release the data demonstrating that Synology re-branded drives are more reliable than other NAS and enterprise drives, and let customers make a purchase decision based on this and accept the consequences of their actions.

If you really want to 'parent' us in the name of 'safety', you would mandate that nobody can purchase a Synology without also purchasing a UPS, with power glitches being one of the most reasons for failure. But no yo don't do that, and let people make their own decisions as an adult.

So disappointing from a company that so many IT professionals used to love and regularly recommend. You have abused the trust of your most loyal customers and IT professionals. You know, the ones that make the purchasing decisions and are the reason for your success over the years. Please do better!

Unilaterally removes features you paid for.

Restricts functionality/support if you don't use Synology-branded drives, which are basically overpriced third-party drives with a sticker and custom firmware locking them to Synology devices.

Update (10/11/2025): They reversed the decision and restored functionality after sales dropped.

I have been a happy Synology user for over 10 years and was waiting for the new 2025 models to be released before upgrading my DS918+. Unfortunately several review sites have now issued a warning that the new models will only be compatible with Synology's own branded hard drives and NVME drives. Unfortunately this greedy lock-in is something I can't accept so I will be looking to move to a self-hosted platform such as TrueNAS.

I have used Synology NAS units for a few years, and last year bought another one to replace an aging model.
Recently it developed a hardware fault, and their
tech-support could not have been more helpful.
Sadly the unit needed replacing, but their support person Andrea really helped out and arranged for for me to return it their UK office instead of the German office where they prefer to have goods returned.
Definitely a friendly and efficient support with a fast turnaround.

I guess most people only leave reviews when they need to complain. I've used a Synology NAS for 5+ years and quite happy with it. There was a steep learning curve, but I if the same DSM OS has to cater for every NAS model from single drive home use to large scale business use, then that's to be expected. I've always found support to be very helpful, but I've never had to deal with a hardware failure, which seems to be the issue with most of the negative reviews. I was disappointed that Photo Station and Video Station were discontinued, and getting Emby to work was another learning curve but support AI sorted that for me.

I liked Synology and used it for over a decade then the disaster struck and the darn thing deleted like 80% of the data (15TB). Yes, I had backups but the company lost over a week of productivity due to the time it took to recovery the stuff. After much to and fro, Synology has admitted that they have no clue what had happened and offered no suggestions beyond 'keeping an eye on things'.
Now, will you trust your data to a company like this?

The hardware may be OK, but customer service is a joke, they will give you wrong or incomplete advice/info leading to complete loss of all your data and inoperable NAS, then take 3-4 days to reply with more wrong info, and with days between responding and the responses being useless, effectively you are on your own

We use a DS1517 at home for back up, watching movies, general storage and our home CCTV surveillance set up. The software and apps that these devices come with which are all free to download once you’ve bought your device are really awesome.

I came to leave my review here, almost sure I would find a 4.8 average score. I am so surprised to see the low ratings by other users.

Synology is one of the leading companies for NAS. The second-hand market for Synology devices shows very little depreciation, a signature of the real value of their technology. I bought and managed two devices, and both work perfectly with minimal effort.

When I had a small problem with the power supply, the retailer (Not Synology) avoided responsibility. Still, Synology stepped up and replaced the item at no cost to me. The agent I dealt with was kind and knowledgeable focusing on actually finding and solving the issue. The good experience with Synology is very different from most other customer services that appear to focus on avoiding helping at any cost.