Ohh... I forgot about this. If they're still doing that then I wouldn't recommend them.

For less tech-savvy users, I usually recommend some off-the-shelf hardware, so they have multiple people they can go to in case of issues with either the hardware or the standard built-in software (like the manufacturer, or other people that are also familiar with products from that manufacturer).

Synology used to be the best for that, but maybe not any more. A lot of brands have gotten into NAS hardware over the last year or two so I'm not sure what's the best now!

I have a Synology DS918+. Older model, but it’s still chugging along and it serves me and my Plex users well. That said, I don’t plan on getting a new one if/when this one dies. They reversed their decision on the vendor lock-in for drives, but the fact they did that at all really put me off.

I get their reasoning behind wanting to vendor lock the drives - Synology is a great chassis for amateur network storage enthusiasts, the kind of people who likely blew their budget on the NAS chassis thinking everything would work fine long-term when they slapped some cheap used desktop hard drives into the box. The shitty drives eventually die, and they blame Synology for their own bad hardware choices. That’s not an issue I struggle with, though, so I’m just thinking I’m no longer Synology’s target customer.

These days I’d recommend just building your own rig if you can swing that. And if you do go with a prebuilt chassis, for fuck’s sake don’t just slap any old hard drives in there!