How to Get Hardware Transcoding BACK on Your Synology NAS

Last updated on 24 Sep 2025 📧 Subscribe
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1 Get Graphics Drivers and Hardware Transcoding BACK for Plex/Jellyfin/Emby on your Synology NAS
1.1 What Happened to Hardware Transcoding on the Synology 2025 NAS, and Why Is This a Problem
1.2 Disclaimer: This Is Unofficial – Know the Risks!
1.3 Step By Step Guide to Get J41225 Graphics Drivers Hardware Transcoding Back
1.4 Conclusion
2 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?
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Get Graphics Drivers and Hardware Transcoding BACK for Plex/Jellyfin/Emby on your Synology NAS

Note – the video on this fix will be published soon and I will update this article with images ASAP.

Synology’s 2025 refresh brought the DS225+ and DS425+ with the familiar Intel Celeron J4125, but it also quietly removed the kernel graphics driver support that Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby use for hardware transcoding of H.264 and HEVC. This guide explains what changed, why it matters for real-world streaming, and how you can restore GPU-accelerated transcoding on these models using an unofficial SSH method shared by the community. If you rely on your NAS to reshape 4K or high bitrate files for phones, tablets, hotel TVs, or limited connections, this walkthrough will help you get that efficiency back.

IMPORTANT – Massive credit to RROrg group over on Github for ‘cracking the nut’ on this with their latest repo HERE 

Additionally, credit to Luka @ Blackvoid, who made this great article, covered this first and gave me permission to use his guide here and in my upcoming video. Read his article HERE

What Happened to Hardware Transcoding on the Synology 2025 NAS, and Why Is This a Problem

When Synology launched the 2025 “x25” lineup, users expected a minor refresh of familiar models like the DS225+ and DS425+. Instead, they discovered that Synology had removed the i915 graphics driver from DSM, effectively disabling hardware transcoding on the Intel Celeron J4125 CPU. This meant that Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby could no longer tap into the iGPU’s Quick Sync Video capabilities. Synology confirmed the change in support tickets, explaining that both H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC) transcoding had been deliberately blocked at the kernel driver level. The company cited licensing costs for HEVC, even though AVC is license-free, and argued that most client devices already support native playback. The earliest and longest discucssions on this topic are HERE on this Plex Forum thread.

The result is a significant downgrade for users who bought these models expecting the same multimedia performance as their predecessors. Instead of 10–20% CPU usage during hardware-accelerated transcoding, users now see 80–100% CPU utilization when reshaping video on the fly. For remote streaming, converting 4K to 1080p or 720p becomes slow, inefficient, and often unworkable. This change undermines the value proposition of the J4125 platform and leaves Plex and Jellyfin users with hardware that is technically capable but artificially restricted, creating frustration across the Synology community.

Disclaimer: This Is Unofficial – Know the Risks!

Before diving into the workaround, it is important to understand that this method is not supported by Synology and involves altering core system modules via SSH. These steps rely on community-compiled drivers and are provided “as is,” without warranty. Making changes at the kernel level can cause instability, break after DSM updates, or in the worst case, lead to data loss if mistakes are made. You should always keep verified backups of your data before proceeding, and only attempt this if you are comfortable working with the command line and root-level access. Proceed entirely at your own risk.

Step By Step Guide to Get J41225  Graphics Drivers Hardware Transcoding Back

  1. Download the Source Code

  2. Create a Folder on Your NAS

    • Log into DSM and create a new Shared Folder (e.g. scripts) on your main volume.

    • Make sure your DSM account has full access, since root privileges will be needed later.

  3. Upload the Archive

    • Use File Station or SMB to upload the .zip file into the new scripts shared folder.

    • Once uploaded, extract it on the NAS by right-clicking and selecting Extract Here.

    • If extraction creates subfolders, move the relevant script files (such as transcode_4_x25.sh) directly into the main scripts directory for easier referencing.

  4. Create a Scheduled Task

    • Open Control Panel > Task Scheduler.

    • Select Create > Triggered Task > User-defined Script.

    • Give the task a name (e.g. Synogfx).

    • Set the User to root.

    • Set the event to Boot-up so the script runs every time the NAS restarts.

  5. Point to the Script

    • In the task settings, paste the full path to the script file, for example:

      sh /volume1/scripts/transcode_4_x25.sh

    • If unsure, right-click the .sh file in File Station, select Properties, and copy the full directory path.

  6. Confirm and Save

    • DSM will warn you about using root and non-standard scripts. Acknowledge this and proceed.

    • Enter your DSM admin password when prompted.

    • The scheduled task will now appear in the list.

  7. Run the Script

    • Right-click the new task and select Run to execute it immediately.

    • Optionally, reboot your NAS to confirm that the driver loads automatically on startup.

  8. Verify Hardware Transcoding

    • Open Plex (or Jellyfin/Emby) and play a file requiring transcoding.

    • Check playback statistics: you should now see HW (hardware transcoding) instead of CPU-only usage.

Conclusion

Synology’s decision to remove iGPU drivers from the 2025 DS225+ and DS425+ left many users frustrated, especially those who rely on Plex or Jellyfin for remote streaming. While the company cites licensing costs and client-side decoding as justification, the hardware itself remains fully capable of transcoding. Thanks to community-driven efforts, it is possible to re-enable Quick Sync on these models with an SSH-based workaround. This fix restores the efficiency and functionality users expected, though it comes with risks and requires maintenance after reboots. For multimedia enthusiasts who value hardware transcoding, this unofficial solution may be the only way to unlock the true potential of these NAS systems.

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      464 thoughts on “How to Get Hardware Transcoding BACK on Your Synology NAS”

      1. The sooner Synology admit that they want to exit the SOHO space and focus on Enterprise, the better. That certainly seems like their plan anyway. Makes me wonder why the BeeStation even exists (other than the obvious, money).
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      3. I have a DS918+, it’s 7 years old now and was thinking about upgrading. Thought I could just buy the DS 925+ and slide my hard drives in it. Well, guess what, you can’t do that because none of my drives are supported in the new 2025 models, you have to use Synology branded hard drives. Maybe time to look at other solutions.
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      5. It really feels like they’re trying to push people towards their “Bee” sub-brand, which are super watered-down in comparison to their NASes. They really seem to not want to cater to prosumers anymore, only businesses. It also feels like they are trying to kneecap their iGPU NASes in order to push their newer ones that lack an iGPU.

        Edit: WOW it’s for their BeeStation devices, too? Seriously? Those are for the normies; this will actually affect them.
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      6. In response to your valid warning about running scripts and T&Cs. If Synology are going to remove CPU supported features after purchase, then I would argue T&Cs are null and void. As I said in reply to someone on the last video, as a regular viewer of Louis Rossmann, it seems a regular occurrence and behaviour by companies these days, to remove features, put stuff behind paywalls or brick devices after purchase. If buying isn’t owning, then modifying/hacking doesn’t breach T&Cs or whatever, words to that effect. People will vote with their wallets, and when that doesn’t work, they’ll turn to 3rd party solutions like this script to “rollback” features that were there when the bought the product.
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      9. DSM is just Linux, once you get down to it. It’s got a custom Syno patched kernel, and a ton of custom scripting, but once you’re down the OS, it’s the same bits. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s easy because Syno certainly has its own quirks that need to be overcome in getting anything like drivers working. In the end you’re spinning your own kernel module.. This is as easy as it gets, so kudos there.
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      19. Thx for the video! But seriously, a script to allow transcoding, a script to provide 3rd party drives, whats next? A script to turn on a synology? lol. UNAS-Pro with Unraid apps, here I come! Regardless, keep up the great work
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      21. Before when I saw the word “Synology” I used to think “what interesting new thing is happening”.
        Now when I see the word “Synology” I think “How are the screwing us over now?”. ????
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      24. I’m only watching this video for informational purposes, and to try to help boost it as I don’t own a Synology NAS. The fact that this is necessary at all is ridiculous though. Their software platform may be one of the best, but their hardware offerings have been extremely lackluster and overpriced for quite a few years now compared to other turnkey NAS options. Even if Synology does fully double back on these anti-consumer decisions they’ve made recently, I seriously think people need to start looking elsewhere. When customers have to start running random scripts from the internet on a device that’s supposed to be user-friendly just to reinstate drivers for hardware that’s in the product they paid for you have completely lost the plot and people should not be supporting you as a company. Doing this retroactively also means that if someone bought one of these units recently, or is looking at getting one, they may be basing their purchase on the fact that there is hardware transcoding support.

        Regardless of all that I’m glad that people have some kind of workaround to use the hardware they paid for now. Great video as usual!
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      26. At least Synology didn’t take a cue from the car manufacturers and make transcoding into a subscription service 🙂
        It seems to me that they are struggling a bit with product/market segmentation. Fair play to Dave Russel et al for the workaround!
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      27. I have a solution. Dump Synology and buy QNAP. Loving ZFS, ability to actually use m2 for real options, ability to use whatever drive I want, and have great software and easy deployment..
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      33. But the erosion of trust that Synology seems to excel at doing has meant that this is definitely comes under the heading “time to move on from Synology”. If they don’t care about this today what will they trash tomorrow?
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      36. I don’t think I personally need transcoding with my library and devices, however, I was considering a future BeeStation purchase just because it had transcoding in a value package. It was a nice to have, and now I can’t trust that. The cost claim is baffling. Player devices are in the same boat and the margins on those have to be tiny as well. Yes, they sell more, but all but one is $100 max, Think of how many devices you own that licence those codecs. Also, there are a lot of compression parameters to encoding that can effect decoding compatibility if your not careful, so again, transcoding can be pretty useful.
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      43. I have to hack my DS just to use my HDDs – and even my GPU only works if I hack it. Are they out of their minds? My system is full, so I need to upgrade it, but with this nonsense Synology is putting my data at risk, since I’m forced to manipulate my system while still having to apply updates. They should actually be held liable for that!
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      45. The transcoding thing is why I didn’t update to DSM 7.2.2.2 from 7.2.1 on the DS920+.
        Transcoding was literally my reason for buying the DS920+. I’m not 100% sure if they corrected breaking that or not, but for now I’m stuck in 7.2.1.
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      46. The transcoding thing is why I didn’t update to DSM 7.2.2.2 from 7.2.1 on the DS920+.
        Transcoding was literally my reason for buying the DS920+. I’m not 100% sure if they corrected breaking that or not, but for now I’m stuck in 7.2.1.
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      54. if hardware reviewers knew about this change and didn’t talk about it, and reviewed Synology devices in the interim without warning their viewers of this change, that would be shitty.
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      56. This is exactly the reason why i decided to build a TrueNAS server with a Jonsbo N2 + N100 NAS motherboard from Aliexpress 18 months ago. The writing was on the wall with all the months of research i was doing. I own 100% of my hardware and full control over my OS. If something breaks (e.g RAM, PSU or FAN) i can replace it myself part by part or upgrade it as i see fit. I can put whatever drives i want in it, its more powerful than Synololgy’s offerings (despite been an N100) and they cannot disable or take away features from me. Who in their right mind who ever get a Synology in 2025 is beyond me.
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      60. I bought my first NAS recently. I was very close to buying Synology but saw the games they were paying with drives. I really dodged a bullet by switching my purchase to another brand.
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      63. Yet another reason why I am an open source consumer and advocate. These companies really find new, pathetic, and creative ways to pull the rug from under people all in the name of squeezing profits and perpetuating this insane level of greed. Being hardware limited is one thing but all these software limitations… bleh!
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      66. Synology have been desperately trying to fill seats at in person marketing events here in Australia this month after a few years of online only events that clearly have not been attracting appropriate numbers also – I wonder why?
        The recent changes to limitations on non branded synology products that are ostensibly identical or even better than their Synology branded counterparts (except for their extravagant pricing) and rolling back enshrined features just to benefit Synology’s bottom line which is already gathering very reasonable base costs is appalling and people are voting with the feet, and apparently with their seats as well.
        Whether it be these HEVC licenses, that have inconsequential cost impacts for paying a mandated license on a per unit basis (c’mon – 25 cents!) or requiring synology branded NVME to enable deduplication in advanced filesystems (of which the base open source software is license free and has no license restirictions) under the pretense of reliability rather than profit is entirely transparent.
        Synology users are not idiots and they see through this entirely.
        The trend has been cast over the last 5 years – Synology is untrustworthy in maintaining access to the hardware we have purchased through paywalls and gateways that are ENTIRELY unreasonable. Gated access to features using hardware and parts entirely capable apart from the fact they are not synology branded and extravagantly priced goes against the very things that established the brand in the first place, and it appears their userbase is fed up with it. Keep going, and you won’t have a brand at all.
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      67. Can’t they have it as an option in the app store? Fucking diabolical this is.

        I’m made up I got my 423+ when I did when I found out the new ones won’t let you use any drive you wanted
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      68. I’m glad I got a DS923+ when there was still stock at my local store hopefully by the time it needs replacement either synology have capitulated or there will be a good alternative
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      69. Even Microsoft sells an HEVC license to enable it on your PC. Why can’t Synology just sell a software addon to enable support? I bought the codec for $0.99 from MS which means they made 5x profit. Synology is so stupid.
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      70. The license cost was already rolled into the previously sold units, therefore for every device sold it should be illegal to remove that and I suspect it is. They know no one is going to sue, or if they do it will be years before the courts actually do anything about it and people will see nothing from it while the lawyers walk away with millions, and by then most of these devices will likely be dead and replaced already. They need to have device specific firmware/updates ONLY for the new devices no longer covered by the royalty fee.
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      71. Do not update the firmware because anybody that gets up there in your firmware without knowing that what it does beforehand anymore as an idiot and you keep it as is this would be them trying to change the terms of sale after the sale that’s illegal and that’s kind of class action lawsuit time
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      72. 1st… WHERE ARE THE SEAGULLS? are you hiding them under the floor boards?
        2ndly… i used synology for a long time, used my beloved DS410J for many years without a problem (outside of burned power brick), i was considering a typical user behavior “if it works don’t fix it” and buy another synology just newer… bigger… like 923 or smth… at that point they started locking down the drives and other bs… i made a tough decision (at that time) to abandon synology and move to Zimacubepro… BOI was i right to jump away from synology… here “it just works” and there is no bs on “we will save the .2 gbp/euro on your behalf” if my decision in your product is on 20 penies… then your product is crap. Im really sad to hear that one of the heros of the past joined the dark side and actually they are leading the dark pact 🙂
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      76. This is rather unfortunate because, otherwise, Synology NASes are very good products. As mentioned in the video, they could at least offer the codecs or drivers as a purchase option like the “exFAT Access.”
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      80. I always bought Synology in the past, but due to multiple new restrictions I took them off the list for my next.

        They also discontinued support of hardware transcoding on my old unit during a DSM update, so I’ve now lost trust in them.

        Shame.
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      84. I recently switched from a Synology 1520+ to a Ugreen DXP 8800 plus and it’s a big improvement. Especially after the latest software update. Ugreen updated the kernel to 6.12. Which means it is now supporting Arc GPU’s. I installed a Sparkle A310 eco in the Ugreen nas, and it works perfectly.
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      87. Well that is enough. I was wondering that I give them a chance if they remove the HDD restrictions. But what is this? No, well, really no go. This is a rip off, good bye Synology. I own the DS220+. Starting to need the 4 bay version, but will wait, until Ugreen will be competitive and have some Surveillance station solution. Then I quit…
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      90. They are watching everyone go bonkers about it and after this they will give you the option to buy the driver from their store for a price. Bare in mind the first 100.000 products are free for Synology, they are only paying after that. So they’ll make a shit load of profit. I always said this. The bigest issue with “democracy” is greed getting out of control.
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      91. Sounds like some investors want a higher profit margin next quarter and Synology prefers to lose customers in the long run if that makes the next quarter look good.

        Corporate customers probably don’t use transcoding, and Synology could be moving away from the home market. That argument could explain the disk certification thing as well
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      94. Synology, has made itself irrelevant in the last year to everyone outside the datacenter, hard drives lock outs, and now transcoding. I’ve bought QNAP for my last 2 devices, and been very happy, now I’ve got into DIY. I would’ve recommended Synology to others though, coz I’ve used Synology DSM with access to someone else’s NAS, and it’s a pleasant, easy to use user experience, but not anymore, I’d probably tell people to get a Ugreen device if they wanted a simple system that isn’t overwhelming. Most home users use their NAS for data storage and media playback, some might venture into a couple of containers, but for the sake of 20 cents on devices that costs hundreds of dollars / pounds, it’s ridiculous and ultimately will cost Synology sales and reputation.
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      95. I still like my ancient Synology four drive. I’ve considered upgrading to a newer bigger one over the years. Any such consideration is over. I’ll continue to use the one I have for now. When I retire it, I’ll go home grown.
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      96. lol the intro. I feel like Synology has made it very clear, they don’t want to be a part of the consumer market. Didn’t they already kill off their media player apps?
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      97. I really thought a long time about the decision between Synology and UGreen, ultimately going with UGreen.

        Thank you, Synology, for continuing to make me feel better about my purchase decision.
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      99. The license cost is per year, so $0.20 per device per year, and unless they want to pay “indefinitely”, they would probably need to start expiring products, as 10 year old devices still work well enough.
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      101. This is the reason to go DIY if you were considering it. I always thought they seemed overpriced for the hardware you got. Then take away the ability to use that hardware and you get expensive ewaste.
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      102. Does this driver clawback apply to older devices, like the DS1520+, which has always done a nice job with hardware transcoding? Or will legacy devices continue to work like normal?
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      106. Synology has bloombergd????
        Having overpriced underspecced hardware which synology is was previously more or less justified by at least OK software. For a home usage it was a justified as you were getting ability to use video station without needing to use plex, get photos stored for every user.
        Now that they ripped all this out + adding HDD vendor lock from a home user perspective for me it seems to be now just another NAS (dumb one, from a home user side of view). In this sense it’s better to stick with Ubiquity NAS. And if you need something with more possibilities check qnap or ugreen or even freenas
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      110. I am still running a ds918+ and I bought it back in the day because of Hardware Transcoding for Plex. When I am ready for an upgrade I know I will be looking at alternatives like UGreen or maybe even just storage like with Unifi
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      111. This is such disgusting behavior by Synology. I am not ever going to buy another again… and I got quite a few for my friends, office, customers and myself… I mean, it is my Hardware and I want to decide how to use it and don’t want to be forced on how to use it.
        Many people just want to stream their videos or some music… not for a big audience, but for themselves/family…
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      120. I’m so happy I migrated away from synology to old enterprise gear with truenas. 1/3rd the capital cost, 2x better cpu performance and 50% more power usage. I’ll take that.
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      123. I am watching this development for a couple of months now with increasing concern… Synology has been such a nice turn key solutions for “normal” people who just wanted to own their files.
        Even though now other companies will be hyped, my company`s logical solution is to go for open source only: Proxmox + TrueNAS. TrueNAS as the “dumb” SMB and NFS share system and Proxmox with one or more Docker-VMs and LXCs for all containers. One cloud server acts as reverse proxy and thats it!
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      124. I like Video Station, so have been stuck on the last release of DSM which still supports this. Synology killed their brand IMHO. At some point I will move to another NAS solution.
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      125. Prices right now in Switzerland:

        Synology DS925+ (0 TB) CHF549.–
        Synology DS923+ (0 TB) CHF629.–
        Synology DS425+ (0 TB) CHF434.–
        Synology DS423+ (0 TB) CHF485.–

        The 2023 devices are massively more expensive then the 2025 devices.
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      126. It is a shame. I’ve been saving up for my first NAS and after month of research I decided on a Synology is the brand for me. Im a Plex and Mac user and the brand seems like a good fit. Then the drive issue come up with the latest versions and now this transcoding.

        The Unifi NAS 2 is looking better and better as I have a Unifi network in my home. Sure it can’t run Plex but it’s integrated with what I know and no restrictions in drives.
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      139. It appears that Synology is trying to extricate themselves from the ProSumer/hobbyist consumer market that built their brand, by effectively sinking anything that one would want from them. Price effectiveness has always been sketchy, compatability is now out the door as they lock down their drive choices and hobble the system otherwise, and now rescinding HARDWARE LEVEL FEATURES that they have no right to remove. If it was a licensing issue, pass the license costs on to the end user like they did with exFAT. They are purely signalling they want to be an SMB only company. Because they lack the reliability and support of an enterprise operation, and they want to extricated themselves from the consumer market. So they are left with only the SMB market, in which there are still many better choices.

        Just bad moves all around.
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      144. This is the risk of going with a closed system. Synology is firmly in the do not buy column. If they had been smart they’d of offered the driver for $5 and made everyone a little less pissed off ????.
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      145. and this is why I will never again buy a Synology device. The behaviour of this company lately has really been odd. It’s like they don’t want customers anytmore, lucky for me I didn’t buy a synology (I was about to buy about 2-3K of devices) when they pulled the hard driver vendor fiasco.. Now happily working on TrueNAS. 🙂
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      147. I was done with synology years ago lack of support for older nas devices forcing us to use their certified drives and being stuck with the synology software being tied to them hoping they will support it going into the future this is what you get. I want somthing I can wipe out and load whatever os I want if somthing better comes out. I keep far away from any product that stops support forcing you to buy new. Dump Synology go with somthing else.
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      149. Other than docker running a handful (not majority of) containers, this is just a simple file storage. Now having a minisforum nab9 for my container / vm work. While I’ve been a ds101j OG user, will be confsidering other brands like unifi nas or ugreen in future.
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      150. Remember when? Samsung had those commercials about Apple removing the headphone port – I think it’s time for some clever NAS vendors to create some similar commercials.
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      155. I’ve been working in IT for 24 years, I won’t be recommending Synology to anyone, there’s plenty of alternatives out there to chose from.
        The customer is purchasing a NAS from Synology with a CPU. That CPU should be able to do what Intel’s advertising says it can. It should not be deliberately nerfed by disabling the hardware transcoding.
        It would be reasonable for a customer to assume based on the Intel CPU model that the trans-coding feature is included and as such will fall fowl of Australian consumer law.

        If the cost of licensing has increased the solution is simple. Increase the cost of the product by $1-2 to include the license cost.

        It really does seem to be a year for companies to trash their good reputations in the hunt to save a few pennies. I’d really like to see the industry grow up, get some CEOs that care about quality, and discard the current batch that appear to have “cola company” ceo in tech syndrome.
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      156. Removing driver support is so disgusting. Just when i found out about ffmpeg and using it for my own use like 1 month later the DSM upgrade removed support. I really find it hard to buy a future system without this being rectified
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      157. Looks like I got out of the Synology game at the right time, I’ve been with this for years from before 2000. This year I went with UGreen DXP8800 plus and the hardware smash’s Synology so bad, I was even using a RS4017xs+ what has a real cpu! It has done everything I was using my Synology for, faster, quieter, and using less power!
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      163. I believe, Intel already paid for the license because they implemented licensable technology in hardware. The notion Synology is saying they need a license does not make sense. Any hardware company which implements licensable technology runs the risk of being sued if they do not have a license to cover Licensable IP.
        I think Synology has jumped the shark. I would say continued coverage is like watching a slow motion train wreck. It’s hard to look away. I’ll bring the popcorn.
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      165. All of the recent disappointing changes, un-helpful for small users, has occurred since about when the founder, Phillip Wong stepped down as CEO in 2022. Like many tech companies, the founder was committed to an amazing product, then the non-founders come along with no mission except to raise the valuation by squeezing pennies. No more innovation, no more customer commitment. It’s a sad cycle.
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      166. With so many great options available, why choose Synology? I recently upgraded to the Minisforum N5 Pro running TrueNAS, and I’m thoroughly enjoying the flexibility it offers. Being able to choose my own operating system without being locked into a specific ecosystem has been a game changer. Plus, the hardware specs are significantly better, making it a much more powerful and customizable solution then the likes of turnkey based devices like Synology, Qnap.
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      169. I’ve been waiting for years for Synology to add 2.5 Gbps Ethernet on their budget lineup. tragically, when the feature finally arrived, they introduced HDD lock-in and now this. I’ll definitely switch to Ugreen.
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      171. It just so happens that I was recently GIVEN several working HP Z240 SFF desktops; they all have an I5-6600 4/4 core 3.3-3.9Ghz with 16 Gen3 PCIe lanes across 2 x16 and 2 x1 LP slots, 16GB DDR4 (plus two empty slots), plus one NVMe and four SATA ports each, all in a horribly enormous gigantic case the size of a VCR. And all because they “won’t run 11” and all I had to do was haul them away. More than half of them even had extra HDDs and some SATA SSDs still installed, and I have since discovered I can easily upgrade them with cheap Xeons and ECC RAM! See for yourself, compared to a “new” J4125 (2.2-2.7Ghz with 6 total gen 2 PCIe lanes and 8GB max RAM for starters) system and all the other glorified toaster NAS’s flooding the market these “old” throw-away machines are HUGELY more capable of ALSO running apps, VM’s, containers, etc in addition to playing NAS. And speaking of flooding markets, it’s late 2025 and there are literally thousands of other “won’t run Win 11” perfectly functional (even more powerful!) Linux/Proxmox/TrueNas/Unraid capable business-class machines are being disposed daily by all sorts of companies all over. Super cheap or even free, you might only have to ask.

        At the end of the day a basic NAS is nothing but rather simple PC that has room for a few storage drives, that’s it, that’s all. A Synology DS425+ is $500+ without drives, and is supposedly “worth it” because it comes in a pretty case and an “old” PC will use more electricity? SO WHAT? Honestly a gaming console will have a similar effect on your power bill, and even while doing MORE than just NAS duty these PCs will literally take YEARS to use enough electricity to balance out a “low power”machine that costs hundreds of dollars to start with. But hey at least Synology devices not only “require” approved proprietary over-priced drives but now also “include” (?) ACTIVELY BLOCKED functionality to go with their piddly mobile (also EoL/discontinued) CPU that was really only intended for thin clients and tablets to begin with right?

        STOP even thinking about giving this company your money or any company like them, and don’t let your family and friends do it either. Just my .02.????
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      172. I’m surprised they actually included this in the changelogs. When they silent dropped large volumes (200TB) on their enterprise NAS in DSM 6.2.3, they didn’t even put a footnote on their blog post.
        Just silently removed all references to large volumes on the product page, and spec sheets. No mention anywhere in changelogs, site, blogs, or any other media about the change.
        When we had to file the support ticket, they literally just gave a ‘tough luck, sorry not sorry, you’re on your own’ reply.
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      183. I agree something’s going on with Synology. If they only issued the requirement for hard drive makers, or only removed a very important feature then I don’t think we would raise an eyebrow. Yeah, we would complain. But they did both which to me is suspicious in itself. Makes me think they are having money troubles or like a previous poster said “having their Broadcom moment”. I’m wondering if this is the last change that affects users negatively.
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      184. I’ve been running a Synology DS1621 and DS720 without any issues, they’ve held up well. But they’ll be my final Synology purchases. I recently picked up the UGREEN DXP2800 and couldn’t be happier. I’m not going to be locked into buying Synology’s overpriced, rebranded drives. And now these!
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      186. Synology’s user friendly front end was the gold standard, and the best argument for buying their turnkey over a competitor or DIY. Lately though they’re really making it easy to choose a competitor if you want a full featured turnkey NAS. If you have to hack a Synology to actually use the outdated hardware it does have, it offers precisely nothing over DIY.
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      188. 09:20 – i have a suggestion regarding that background with tiled up web pages – would you consider using Vivaldi browser? 🙂
        it has native tiling function, so you see 4 pages without browser UI taking up space on each tile (you will have a single browser UI and 4 pages tiled within page area)
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      189. All of my movies are on disc. Except the theatrical versions of Star Wars. I’ve got the Harmy and OohTeeDee versions downloaded as you can’t buy those, otherwise I would. Though I do have the bluray Star Wars box set.
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      191. I bought the NAS to make my life easier, not to be screwed up every other month. Synology would learn or be forced to learn from this lesson.
        Truth be told, even I kept my DSM version for VS on DS920+, plex performance is still bad on a huge library, coz they use severely outdated hardware. We are just better off avoiding Synology like plague and give ugreen and minisforum a chance
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      194. I personally couldn’t care less about this, but I don’t think anyone would care if they charge 1 $/£/€ or even 5 $/£/€ extra on the price of their device to cover this cost. I know I wouldn’t have since I know a lot of people like this functionality. That said, they have lost me for good as a customer a while ago anyway with their anti-consumer behaviour. They are an untrustworthy company, who lie to their customers and betray their business partners (I can not imagine how annoyed those HDD and SSD manufacturers who manufacture Synologys drives were with them blocking their own drives). I can also almost guarantee you this will come back as a subscription. They are a company who use mafia tactics, who everyone thinking of buying a NAS should avoid like the plague, because what else will they change next? What a terrible company. And that comes from someone who used their products for 15 years and was generally a big fan until everything they did the last year.
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      195. Once Synology takes away the ability to backup my data to any cloud service, that’s where I draw the line. Until then I’ll use it to backup my data safely and securely.
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      203. I was curious what an HEVC license actually costs, because ya’ll are making it sound like it’s hundreds of dollars per device…I suspected it was pennies and turns out I was right, actually it’s cheaper than that.

        Here’s Synologys HEVC licensing costs. First 100,000 devices are free. Yup, first 100,000 units sold per year are free. Then each device over 100,000 cost $0.20 per device. That’s right, after the first 100,000 free devices, it’s 20 CENTS per device. Also, there’s a cap of $25 million per year. So if you sell a stupid amount of devices with the HEVC license, then you will pay no more than $25 million per year.

        Here’s the math, first 100,000 NAS are free. Then the next 125 million NAS devices are 20 cents per device. Annual fees max out at $25 million, so any devices sold over 125 million per year are also free.

        Let that sink in folks. The MULTI-THOUSAND DOLLAR, potentially Synology box of trash you bought had malware developed by Synology on it that removed functionality that existed at the time of sale and when the consideration for the sales contract was negotiated and then was maliciously stolen from you so Synology could save anywhere from zero to twenty cents.

        Fuckin wow!
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      204. My question is why are they still using Intel? Even a Mediatek smartphone SOC would likely outperform the Intel junk they’re pushing. They must be getting these Intel chips for next to free.
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      207. Just like Microsoft makes you buy H265 on a PC I wouldn’t mind if Synology did the same via store and its just a few dollar purchase.They used to do it with exfat but I think microsoft stopped charging for it.
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      211. Prime example of enshittification. I get it. Licensing this crap is not cheap for them, but neither is their hardware. They are clearly making a profit off these things and trying to find ways to perpetuate subscriptions. For me its a moot point as going forward it will be TrueNAS Scale and BYO. I’m technical enough I don’t need, in my case, QNAP’s help and now that I have solid backups if something goes south it’s not the end of the world.
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      213. Boy am I glad when I bought my DS1821+, DS1621+, and DS920+ I decided NOT to run Plex on my NAS before purchasing and have been running it on a Dell PC with Intel Graphics. ???? Synology is slowly poisoning themselves. Basically, less and less reason to want one. Maybe Synology desires to become the next Drobo! ????????‍♂️
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      214. its shit from syno, upload heic image via DS File/Filestation or SMB, no image preview in DSM. You can only convert a image preview in home/photo via Syno Photo. If they’re pissed off about license fees, they should just charge $1-2 a year, then everyone can decide for themselves whether they want it.
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      215. Synology are for sinophobic rich people who doesnt want to do any research and just needs NAS now.

        Go UGREEN everyone. Its literally as easy as that. To hell with $ynology
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      216. I bought a DS923+ a couple of years ago as a home NAS and one key reason was Surveillance Station, Video Station with transcoding and 3rd party drives/SSDs. I’m getting tired of companies pulling features from products post-purchase. My next NAS will definitely not be a Synology. It may even be a DIY system where I’ll have full control. The DS923+ may end up either being sold off or remaining a basic storage system. Extremely frustrating. Not happy!
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      217. According to their blog post, more than 50% of Fortune 500 companies are using Synology. It’s obvious that they don’t want to deal with the “pennies” they make from us anymore. Probably one of their B2B customers are making more than their entire B2C business…
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      218. Looking at the CPU Synology using then they have been moving towards CPU without an iGPU, thus the NAS less suited to a home server and more an actual NAS.
        Ubiquity with there NAS focussed on pure storage as well.
        Looks as though Synology moving that way as well.
        Other things such as the disk usage seems a move towards the actual business and not the prosumer.
        Plus at the risk of upsetting people is the usage of the home media server still something that is of interest, with the progressive pushing of streaming platforms.
        Is it more profitable for Synology to sell storage to streaming platforms then sell to end users, for instance.
        Outside of tech people then how many people are running home servers
        Also there is a wide plethora of low power home server machines from China (different argument) and these compared with a NAS to provide the storage seems to be the way industry moving, Ie ubiquiti.
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      220. You shake your head that they actually sat around a corporate boardroom and thought that although we have already pissed off our customers enough forcing them to use expensive Synology drives let’s just take a few other benefits of using a Synology NAS away just to make sure they will stop buying our products.
        The Board must all vote Left – it’s the only explanation for stupidity on this level.
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      222. This is a classical case of “changing the deal (years) after the sale”.
        You should get in touch with Louis Rossmann who features this topic a lot in his channel. I’d love to see a show with the two of you about this case.

        Personally, I have recommended the older Synology systems over the newer ones in several instances to people who want to use transcoding just for this feature they now took away from them. Synology used to be my top recommendation to everyone who needed a feature-rich turnkey NAS appliance. Fast forward to 2025: They are now on my “avoid at all cost” list.
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      224. Wow. I was unaware of the deprecation, and almost bought a DS423+ instead of a DS923+ because of the hype for the transcoding support. Now I’m very glad I bought the DS923+. I do see Synology’s point here though, transcoding for mobile-consumption is a very niche power-user use case. (The solution seems to be running Plex on other hardware, which can the access the Synology over the network)
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      234. The more wise option would be to cut in the expenses and instead off removing completely just put it as an optional download, probably half of users are never going to use it but the other half really want that in their NAS
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      236. I’m kinda leaning towards a unas pro (already in the unifi eco system) and a Mac mini for Plex server and other duties. Need to find a good alternative to Synology photo back up which has been brilliant across iOS and android devices.
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      237. The fix if you’re stuck with Synology, as has been mentioned, is to run transcoding on a separate device. Yes, that’s a hassle, but it does come with some benefits in allowing the transcoding hardware to scale independently, like to support more simultaneous streams, heavier transcode work (4k -> 480, e g.), or a newer codec without having to upgrade the whole NAS.
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      239. Let me tell you a secret, THEY DONT CARE about your opinion. They need to make money and don’t care how to make it. Stepping over their customers will comeback to them like a boomerang or most people don’t even care and will keep paying.
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      240. Synology’s Marketing Team is headed by the horse face Bud Light woman, alongside the Cracker Barrel Wokester characters! Well done Synology – you’ve just alienated (along with your drive-lock-in) a whole group of your current user-base! ????????????????
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      243. Not an expert of synology but, watching some videos on it, it seems the company keeps restricting the platform. So why do people even keep bothering with it? Just out of curiosity.
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      246. as I’ve said before, I will no longer be buying synology. is there a device that we can put between the nas and the network that would do the transcoding, so the end device doesn’t have to do so?
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      250. Is someone blackmailing Synology into destroying their brand in a death by a thousand cuts?
        Because all of these changes are insane for a brand as dominant and successful as Synology used to be.
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      251. To be fair i kinda hate the hevc shakedown and 1- 2$ over 5-10 year average lifetime must be a decent chunk of the profit margin which cant be much higher than 10%. But its still insane. Luckily my nas doesnt have a gpu in the first place lol
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      252. This is one of the reasons I stick with the “Big Evil” computer companies for operating systems and hardware.
        Running a Plex server on an Apple computer with MacOS or a server running on an x86 PC with Windows is a much safer bet.
        Linux lovers always seem to say how much better performance Linux can give compared to MacOS or Windows. I’ve never seen any tech person compare identical hardware running with different operating systems.
        I do NOT consider a performance difference of less than 10% to be worthwhile to me! Thanks.
        P.S. Every few years since the early 1990’s I have setup and tested computers with some of the billion Linux forks. The results are never good enough to change to any fork of Linux. Hating/loving Apple or Microsoft is never part of the test. YMMV
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      253. the main problem with this is that we simply cannot fucking trust them anymore. we can’t rely on them to continue to support their devices as they were sold to us. this isn’t just an issue for us degenerates transcoding pirated video on Plex servers. if they’re going to do this for the HEVC codec and GPU drivers, there’s zero guarantee they won’t do it to something else critical to an enterprise. I can no longer recommend Synology machines to my scientific computing customers. this is the kind of thing that ruins an infrastructure company’s reputation.
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      271. Why go back to Intel j series if you do this. Should have stuck with amd v1500b or v1600 in this case. Seems schizophrenic. Too many directives coming from the cSuite group that don’t work together
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      274. Can’t wait for Louis Rossmann to catch wind of this. Clippy would never take away your ability to use your NAS as a media server with transcoding. Clippy just wanted to help.
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      276. It’s called enshittification and it’s a pretty standard playbook.

        1) create a customer base
        2) take steps to prevent them leaving
        3) extract maximum value from them by charging for features that were previously free
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      278. I got it in the first minute of your video… I already said it in your other video … Synology is dead for me and this is only another nail to the coffin… Sorry that I do not watch to the end it hurts so much…
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      279. Wow I had no idea so many people relied on their NAS to do the transcoding. ???? Especially with Synology hardware. And I’m sure all those 4K MKV movie files, you paid for each one of them. ????
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      283. Was Synology bought by a venture capitalist fund I wonder????…., coz that is the play, buy a company, load it with debt, then ‘cost optimize’ everything so what ever made the product/biz what it was …no longer exists. Synology has changed fundamentally, I get the impression they are actively working to stop the home user market.
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      288. It is clear that Synology is killing home user features. So, home users should not trust Synology (I lost this trust after HEIC/Synology Photos case). And Synology users should think on replacing Synology software packages with third party stuff. And the question is: is it worth buying Synology at those prices if software functionality was significantly reduced?
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      296. Just makes me more glad that I dumped my Synology for my DIY ProxMox/True NAS/Jellyfine set up. Plus other stuff. I can configure it how I want it. Not how they allow me to set it up. Now if I could just find someone needing/wanting a 1621+.
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      301. Dumb idea. They could have left it as a purchasable option for any/all server devices by arrangement with the licensor of H265. I can see this being trickled down to other Synology units in the future. Result – Synology is now a hard pass for me, a shame really as I wanted to buy my first NAS later this year utilising existing 12 & 14 Tb NAS drives currently either in my PC’s or sitting on the shelf. Synology is DEAD to me now, won’t read reviews of them as I won’t entertain the brand.
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      302. I just got a NAS motherboard, cpu and ram from AliExpress and built a truenas server and just added the extra disks that were in my synolgy Nas before it was decommissioned.
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      304. It looks like Synology is removing themselves from the consumer market. That is fine with me. They were always a bit too expensive for the hardware you got. Their software sold the NAS units. It just not worth it anymore.
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      307. I have said it before, but they have lost my business. I have spent about $20k US dollars with them over the past 5 years, so they probably don’t care about me, but it adds up.
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      312. Not entirely surprised that Synology continues on the trajectory of alienating its loyal home/SOHO users, however know that the ‘die-hard loyal’ Synology fans (with their unwavering, stubborn, and fanatical devotion to Synology’s destructive business policies) will be along soon to defend this latest action. For me however, I’m not giving either of them the oxygen they seek and have already moved elsewhere for my NAS needs.
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      315. It’s becoming a bit of a theme with items you think you own, being crippled by the manufacturer, we’ve seen it in Home Automation, Kindle with books being taken off your device and streaming services removing or altering content.
        When you buy a product it should be yours, end of. Glad I watched your videos on Zimaos and built my own.
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      320. So they found another way of making all their current devices obsolete and they actually believe when buying a new one people would choose to give them more money? …. Yeah, great idea. Let’s see how that works out for them. ????????
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      321. Really glad now that I didn’t buy that Synology…. how far they’ve fallen. I’d rather just get a Mini PC or Mac Mini and hook an external dock to it.

        At least do what they did with exFAT by charging us $4 or so for that license. I’d buy that driver for H265/264 encoding just to have that feature.
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      322. Nothing is more aggravating–or inexcusable–than vendors going out of their way to disable hardware features after you’ve bought something based on those features being present.

        (See also: Buying something based on the promise that support for Feature X is coming Soon®. Intel still hasn’t managed to properly enable SR-IOV on 12th and 13th generation iGPUs that have had the hardware support since they launched.)

        But this is worse. It’s one thing to not get a promised feature. It’s another to have a feature you were already using taken away. If they didn’t to support it, they could have just removed the related features from the GUI and CLI tools, and let third party vendors take advantage of the hardware–but they pulled the drivers and transcoding support completely out. That had to have taken more work than simply removing the relevant parts of the UI. Just bizarre.

        At this point, I don’t think anyone outside corporate buyers should be looking at Synology at all. Their big advantage over QNAP was their software, and they’re torching that as we watch. Add on the HDD restrictions, and. Well.

        They should do the decent thing and stop marketing to SOHO/SMB/individual users at all. Clearly, they only want you if they can lock you into a support contract with their disks and corporate-focused solutions.
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      323. meh lol I can see why some people that use transcoding would be upset about this, personally not overly fussed, my 1522+ has a ryzen cpu and sucks for transcoding, its why I turned it off even though i have plex pass, other than that its been an awesome plex box (never had to use transcoding).

        only recently ive migrated alot of my services (including Plex) to a 2 node hp elitedesk g3 800 proxmox cluster and have enabled transcoding on that, now I use my synology as a dedicated, safe/stable file server for the cluster and me, as long as synology dont make negative changes to that file server functionality or stuff like synology drive, reverse proxy + ddns then im still perfectly happy with my synology.

        hmm it feels like synology are moving away from the multimedia box server and more towards dedicated NAS and file duties, though idk.
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      325. I hope it’s competition invest it’s no doubt record profits (at Synology’s expense) in software development.

        I’m disappointed I’m not seeing more reviews for these current profits, because you can’t highlight this decline in usability enough.
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      328. Apart backups and a few services, this is the main utilization for my DS1019+, the cpu s**ks but the integrated GPU do the job for watching on *any* device. History repeats itself… VMware. Hey, Unifi do you want to get a lot of customers… you may get a lot of them if you do it right and fast enough! 🙂
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      329. Thx, for an another great video;
        Okay, Synology is talking about “costs”… hmmm; 1 Licens is about 0,20 nickers…
        Okay, means for me at the shop… 2 or 3 nickers more, let it be 5 nickers
        And synology says: Ppl. wouldn t pay this more cost´s cause the have the driver on their enddevices…

        Dear beloved synology.. and that´s the reason why you prefer all the anger of the ppl.???
        Maybe u made advertisment with “Multimedia” and no one can see from outside… oh, drivers are not (anymore) included… Or other have to fear; with the next update it will be vanished….
        Nice

        Dear beloved synology; u made it easy for me (after the restrict stuff with HardDisks/NVMEs)…
        Even when the price for a Asrock N (J) 4125 raise up to the double price; Ram is random stuff, Case von Jonsbro (N2 ?), and a silent STF, incl. the option to build in a GPU (place enogh, and i run setup´s like this)… tell me… why i should buy YOUR HARDWARE???
        For the DSM??? Seriouse?
        I am free to use Software as i want or need, from Zima OS till unraid;
        I can use Harddisk, as i want
        Oh, u think you are alone on the market, no UGreen, no others???

        Dear beloved synology, do u know, what i think???
        Okay, u don´t need anymore the “HomeLab People”, u need the big firms… u want them
        As a firm u would think… okay, when they threat small ppl., what would i expect
        as firm…
        Sorry, My trust is gone to big (biggerr than u) firm´s , witch switch off cloud features;
        that´s why i swaped to home Nas, and now “they” espc. U, start wit h the same crap???

        No Synology, i will say good buy… at other stuff; and pi** off to a firm like u
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      332. I can only reiterate: Synology doesn’t care about homelab/prosumer/etc. use cases anymore. And – just as Luka stated in his article – part of the problem is lack of clear communication (or the actual intention to), sans corporate-speak BS. (Example: if client devices have widespread HEVC/HEIC support now, why do I need a weird and cumbersome client-side workflow to generate _JPEG_ previews for Synology Photos?). As can be seen, information has to be pretty much pried from them, bit by bit. This is so disappointing – my day-one love affair with Synology is coming to an end. In the end, all this was on the horizon (just compare the list of approved drives _decimated_ with every model year) and strongly correlates with the leadership changes a few years back.
        Btw. HEVC stands for High Efficiency Video Coding.
        (Haha, SigueSigueSputnik – great band, btw. – is my alter ego’s alter ego.)
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      338. lucky me, i invested in that stupid syno hard drive for a future migration of plex on nas… and now no h264 transcoding? this make gain unifi lot of point for my use case…wow… nice move.
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      340. ‼ *That is exactly why Synology no longer deserves our trust:*
        ‼ *Synology is focused solely on greed.*
        ‼ Customers are no longer relevant because they will buy Synology anyway (the idiots).
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      342. If Terramaster, Ugreen and all the other guys can read the sings this last quarter could be huge for coupons, rebates and discounts. Hope they can realize the tides are turning on their favour.
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      344. I’d love to be a fly in the boardroom where they discuss these decisions. I’d imagine it would have gone something like this:
        “We’ve already managed to piss off our user base by trying to ram proprietary HDDs down their throats, what else could we do to piss them off some more? I know, let’s remove one of the key feature for media NAS servers to begin with!”
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      348. it’s easy, BOYCOTT Synology and be viral about it, lead social media campaigns. And don’t promote them even at work. There are plenty of alternatives from QNAP to self-built TruNAS servers. Their actions are unjustified and inethical, and it’s the worst a business can do to its years or decades long loyal customers who made them where they are.
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      351. My current (2nd) Synology NAS will be my last Synology product, I have already spun up a lifetime Unraid server. My future is already set and it won’t include synology. If they don’t want to be in the consumer space they should just leave it vs giving underpowered and kneecapped systems.
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      356. Just make the NAS systems 1$ more expensive? I am willing to bet, that 99,99% of people, who buy Synology stuff, would just pay that one extra dollar…

        It’s not about the cost of the license. I am willing to bet it’s about making way for transcoding subscriptions.
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      360. That’s wrong. The cost of the license is included in the price of each unit. So if they see 3M in profit, that’s 3M in profit not 3M minus 16% for the license. They don’t actually pay those fees just like they don’t actually pay for any of the manufacturing, labor, or any other part of operation, we the consumers do and whatever’s left over is “profit” for the capitalist.
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      361. The copyright consortium is tightening the screws and luring more and more software and hardware developers over to its side. This is nothing less than a cartel. The annual PLEX leaks are proof of this, each one followed by automated bot raids that crash private media servers, reset settings and delete unprotected content, delete the “server” in the Plex web interface, or reset users and access rights. There are direct posts saying “just been hacked—they deleted my server and all users.” A large group of users describes problems after password resets: the server became “unclaimed”/”not authorized,” difficulties with reclaiming/reconnecting, and the fear of losing libraries; threads offer instructions on how to restore/claim tokens. Plex selling you the functionality of your own hardware—that’s nonsense! Synology seems to have gone down the same path.
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      367. I recently started changing my network to UniFi and i am loving it. This week they introduced their new lineup of NAS devices high makes it easy for me to start planning for the upgrade of my old DS216J to a newer NAS that fits seamlessly into the UniFi ecosystem. Heck I can even just migrate my HDDs over to a new UniFi NAS and fill my DS261J with old drives lying around and use it as a secondary backup. And also just found out about the hard drive issue. Synology was great when I got my NAS from them, and I was really impressed and planned on upgrading to a newer model from them. They made so easy for me!
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      370. Of all the silly things Synology does, I can 100% understand why Synology doesn’t want to get involved with media codex. There are multiple patents involved, codec licensing, hardware & software support issues, and finally the focus on doing network storage. Transcoding really does interfere with certain storage related tasks, especially with modern filesystems like BTRFS or ZFS that have a magnified ambient level of CPU utilization. The licensing costs are significant, because it’s not a one time cost, and it’s a recurring annual cost, but the Synology customers are not paying that cost. The licensing eats into past hardware sales, and the app store doesn’t have recurring annual fees. I’m not sure how they structure the licensing for the specific situations where they do have the codec. I don’t care anymore, I think people should use open source software and just run the codec on a personal basis.
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      373. Well, thank you Synology from crossing your name of my list of future purchases. When I feel I need to update my NAS, I now know Synology will no longer be a choice on the table. Congratulations!
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      376. Dump Synology. They lost the plot in trying to chase enterprise. I think their long term strategy is to completely kill off their retail consumer segment of their business. They’re using their years of retail consumer brand recognition to pivot to enterprise and leave their core users behind.
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      377. I bought a 920+ when the 923+ was available purely for the ‘better’ media chip. I still have not updated so I’ve kept video station. None of my TVs do transcoding as they are old. Thanks Synology!!!!!!
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      384. This is my solution. I had purchased a MINISORUM MS-01 to use as a proxmox server. I moved the Proxmox server to another machine and now I am using the MS-01 as my Emby server. I store the videos on Synology and have a network connection set up between the MS01 and the Synology. The MS-01 works great but It is probably over kill. I would guess that using another, less expensive mini pc may be enough.

        What a great video that would be for you to demonstrate how to do that!
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      387. This is why i choose DIY nas they are becoming so much more powerfull for less money… i appreciate that these companies include there O.S that does all the hard work when installing apps from there stores DSM asustor (Plex,Jellyfin,webdav etc) but even though im a simpleton when it comes to yaml`s and typing in code lines etc….i can still install truenas omv or paid unraid etc set it up with docker and portainer io and do containers with minimal knowledge. I`m learning more and more each day at 56 yrs of age if i can do DIY nas at my low IQ lvl lol..then most of us can also. If we fight back with DIT nas then these big companies will be a lot more fairer on prices and features…i mean lets face it they are at bit behind on processor choices in there mid range home user stuff…thats my opinion anyway lol….great vid as always and i can see your p***sd at this news like so many others….i mean whats to stop them from doing it to other devices when they need a cash influx???
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      397. hi Robbie, great video as usual. I have a AMD based DS1821 which replaced my old Intel based DS920. When I bought the 1821 I picked up a really cheap Intel N100 mini pc. It connects via SMB to the NAS. I run Plex on the mini pc with Hardware transcoding enabled. Not ideal but it works for me.
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      401. It was Synology’s full suite of software that was one of the reasons I choose them over Other cheaper NAS, often with better hardware. As Synology cuts back on the software capabilities, and locks down their devices, it becomes less and less appealing for end users, and businesses.
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      407. Correction; VVC (H.264) and HVEC (H.265) are both proprietary and you have to pay the licensing body a royalty for every device you ship. AV1 is royalty-free, however hardware encoding (required for transcoding) didn’t turn up on Intel til Xe2 (i.e last year), AMD til RDN3 (i.e RX 7000-series from 2022) and Nvidia til Lovelace (RTX 4000 series from 2022). Fairly obvious they didn’t want to pay for licensing when most people don’t use those features and Intel’s support for AV1 hardware encoding is so new they don’t make anything suited for them with it.
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      408. Insane, insane, insane! To think that I was planning on investing more on their hardware and I made all my family move their stuff, now I have to start all over FFS! For the moment I moved everything to ZimaOS on a DIY NAS and I’m using my 2 old Synology DS220+ and DS223 as backups only. My future is with either ZimaOS or the new Unifi NAS
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      411. If Synology wants to play Cheap Charlie and leave off common media codecs, fine. Not allowing users to purchase and install the licences themselves is inexcuseable. I really hate proprietary systems.
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      413. I’d guess the liability for the licence fee occurs if they provide any ability to access the hardware implementation of the algorithm. Or they fear the law suit if the hardware can be enabled.

        When you scrolled it seemed like the price for new devices was now 30¢. Now that may be worse if it’s some kind of annual fee – how would that be assessed on turn key devices sold years ago…? Weird.

        It’s as mad as when SDXC cards *demanded exFAT* but made oems tortuously licence drivers from Microsoft rather than building the cost into the card.

        It seems weird that the licence isn’t tied to the cpu that implements the codec in its graphics module. Perhaps intel dodged the issue by saying “it isn’t always used” or implementing only the underwater part of the iceberg. So software whether app or driver is needed to break (or reassemble) the HAVC into elements processed in hardware. Thus the hardware may dodge the licencing, forcing it on to the hardware or software OEM.
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      417. Ahh, I think I understand. Synology will be introducing their own rebranded Intel CPU’s in forthcoming releases, so they’ve removed driver support for “unverified” CPU’s until they have “fully validated” them

        However, their future range of NAS devices will be only $500 more expensive than prior models due to the “strategic” and “end to end” user experiences their Synology CPU’s will bring.
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      419. Synology has really decided to speedrun the destruction of their beloved status, tragic.

        I love my current Synology NAS and I’ve considered sticking with them when I need to upgrade from my 2-bay despite some of the changes because I really like DSM, but they’re crashing and burning at this point.

        Time for me to deep dive into your QNAP/UGREEN/Unifi NAS content!
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      423. Does Synology not want customers… Video playback on Synology has never been great but making it worse makes no sense. I’m glad I made the switch to building NAS machines instead of embracing enshitification.
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      425. moving synology from “avoid for now, check later” to “nope, just nope” column, one would think now that av2 is around the corner one would implement more transcoding and not shittify your own product
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      432. The message that I’m getting from Synology lately is, “Go away! Just go away!!!” That doesn’t make sense to me, but who am I to argue? I’m sitting here with two Synology NAS boxes that are going in the bin to make room for something better. This makes me sad, because I’ve enjoyed these systems, but all these moves from the corporation are making me go elsewhere.
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      434. Another reason to not choose Synology. I was an early adopter and have always had 2 of them (primary and backup) for a very long time, but won’t be buying more. This is nothing but “enshitification”.
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      437. It’s never a good thing when storage devices lose basic features as if they were suffering from dementia.

        I guess it’s about time to order a new ugreen nas with the budget originally meant to get another Synology.
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      441. I swear Synology’s top decision makers must work for qnap / ugreen / Terramaster etc. Their market share is going to do a “Blackberry” – And i loved Blackberry as well.
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      443. For me this is a trust issue. Whenever you REMOVE something you sold me, then I don’t trust you. Even if I don’t use the feature you are removing today, the one you remove tomorrow might be essential to me.
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      444. Yep, they just want to remove all non-business users off the NAS platforms and shift whatever they can over to BeeStation. Will probably save them a shed load on support and future OS development costs. They’ve turned me in to a Harvey Dent state personality, the business user side of me still swears by their product and thinks it’s the best turnkey out there (let’s see how well that ages, fine wine or milk?), and the home/enthusiast user side actively despises them now! Way to go Synology, the DS1525+ might well be the last product I ever buy from them!
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      446. Synology is like the Goodwill for NAS devices. They sell old hardware that they get for dirt cheap at retail prices. I literally built 2 NAS systems with a JONSBO N4. I have been using TrueNAS and OWV, and I’m delighted with both. To be clear, I have 2 Synology DS916+ and they are still in use, for now. Currently, I’m building a 3rd NAS with the N4 and will be using Xpenology.
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      454. Media can still be stored on the NAS but now it makes sense to buy another device to handle the transcoding and maybe run the PLEX/Jellyfin apps. A NUC would do that, problem solved.
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      455. In Summary, its all about cost cutting and increasing revenue and they found their excuse “These codecs are widespread on end devices”… same reason why they are still using old CPUs
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      459. There is though a positive aspect to this, Synology made it so much easier for me an for many others to decide their next NAS purchase, in case there was any lingering doubt. ????
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      460. In this week’s episode of “Synology doesn’t want your money” Synology disables the sole redeeming quality of the embedded Intel CPUs of the vintage that they use. Wonder how that’ll go?

        _Tune in next week to see just how much worse it can get!_
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      463. So they are now trying to seemingly target SMB. But if they are going sole after SMB, then your video on UniFi v Synology would be altered because the ecosphere and SMB abilities. Synology seems after trying to trash their own brand chasing one market segment they don’t have
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