Synology makes the best Plex NAS servers, and I've used its products for over a decade now. While the brand doesn't have class-leading hardware, its software suite continues to be the best in the industry, and its NAS servers have been reliable. Currently, I use the DiskStation DS1823xs+ as my main NAS, housing over 140TB of data, and I have a DS1621xs+ as a secondary NAS containing over 80TB of data.
Synology had a quiet 2024, but the brand is gearing up to launch its 2025 portfolio soon. But when the new Plus series models come out, there will be a significant limitation: these DiskStation models will be compatible with Synology's first-party drives, and not the best NAS HDDs from Seagate and Western Digital.
Synology started enforcing this on its business-centric NAS models back in 2021 — which is incidentally when it introduced its own drives — but it mentioned at the time that the move wouldn't affect the consumer DiskStation series. But at the same time, the brand significantly reduced the number of eligible third-party IronWolf and WD Red models, and now it is entirely walking back earlier claims and limiting its DiskStation Plus series to its own drives.
