After a lot of internet outrage and mis-information, Ars Technica were able to clarify Synology’s position regarding the use of 3rd party hard drives in their popular Network storage devices. So, yes Synology will be restricting the use of third party hard drives in future devices to be released later this year. However for the moment this will only affect the new Plus Series models released this year, and will not affect any Plus Series models released before 2025.
According to Synology, only Synology branded drives or third party drives that have been vetted via their updated Product Compatibility List. Will work in the newly to be announced range of Plus series devices. With Synology claiming that they are protecting us from data loss, by only allowing us to use drives that have fewer compatibility issues or are at less risk of failing.
What does this mean now?
Not a lot. The reason Synology is still considered one of the best brands for network attached storage. Is that it is a mature platform that is well designed, reliable and relatively easy to configure. So while there has been a lot of internet rage regarding what Synology has done. This is not the first time Synology has attempted to restrict 3rd party drives.
I suspect that once the dust has settled, we’ll still be able to use NAS hard drives from brands like WD and Seagate. But this negative publicity might make both new and old customers, think about other options. Especially if having to use Synology drives adds too much to the cost of owning the system.
As a buying tip. I have found that it’s often cheaper to buy Synology hardware directly from Synology, using their online store. Which while a cold comfort, should mean that your drives will get regular firmware updates, that will lead to better performance and more reliability.
MS Office makes your computer slower
It’s been ages since I’ve used MS Office, over 15 years to be exact! So, when I recently had to install it on my new Windows computer, I was surprised to find that Windows was loading and performing slower. Something it turns out, is actually by design!
According to an article in PCWorld magazine. In order to speed up the slow loading times of MS Office. Microsoft will use a new Startup Boost function which pre-loads Office, as Windows starts. So while applications like Word and Excel now load faster, the rest of the computer will run slower…
For me Startup Boost makes little sense, and apparently can be turned off. But here’s the thing, I installed Office 2024 Pro on my computer two months back, and according to the PC World article, Microsoft won’t be adding Startup Boost until mid-May, and only for MS Word at first. So, I’m starting to think that while installing Office might have been the culprit behind my sluggish computer. I fear that after May, things are going to get even slower!
This months video releases
We’re all set to release a new video for our Synology BeeStation series. So while our current setup is now able to share files via BeeFiles. When our computer is connected to our home network. We want to be able to bypass BeeFiles, and directly access the network shares on our BeeStation.
So this month we are going to take a look at enabling local file sharing. Which will bring us nicely on to setting up Time Machine on Apple Macintosh computers. Something we might do in late May or early June.
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