The Synology purred along without issue for a couple years. Then in August 2024 the filesystem got corrupted. I had been using a single volume with ssd cache so basically everything was affected. Fortunately, I didn't lose any important data. The critical stuff was in cloud backups and the noncritical I was able to copy to usb drives. The only thing I actually lost were the VMs and some unused lab stuff. Shame on me for not putting the configs in git or doing some type of VM backup (synology requires a VMM Pro license to do vm backups).
While I was at it, I sliced and diced my single volume into 5. I got rid of the ssd cache and used them for the VM storage instead. Then in November the VM volume got corrupted again. I thought maybe the SSDs were bad but it was again at the filesystem level and disks showed healthy. Memory was the other questionable component. This is where the frustrations start stacking up. You have to use the Synology assistant to run a memtest. It's suppose to wait for it to complete and give you results but instead it sometimes works and other time just throws a timeout way too soon. Ultimately I had to ssh in and grep the messages for the results. The logs are vague but did indicate failure. I swapped in some RAM from an old laptop and then memtest ran for 4 hours but at least the logs showed success this time.
So yes it's my fault for not testing the memory when I first installed it or after the first issue. But dealing with the recovery both times made me dislike the Synology software. Here's a laundry list of complaints.
- somehow the postgres database got put on my VM volume, there is nothing in the UI to indicate this postgres exists or what is using it. None of the apps that use it were/are installed on that volume.
- VM disk images are hidden in some kind of obscure iSCSI LUN. I really thought there'd be a qcow2 file somewhere but I have yet to find it.
- The UI tells you mockingly to backup/move files to another volume but then does not provide any tools to actually do this.
- memtest hidden in a desktop client and poorly implemented
- Synology takes advantage of open source software but then uses it in very proprietary/obfuscated ways.
- no API
I'm sure I missed some other things as well. But at this point it's enough that I don't think I will ever buy or recommend another one. I'm not quite annoyed enough to sell the existing chassis and hopefully I won't have to replace it any time soon. When I do it will most likely either be going back to plain linux setup or possible Truenas Scale with my own hardware. Cloud storage might even make sense even though it always feels expensive.
I do use Synology Office and Photos a very tiny bit, but not enough to make it worth it. Ultimately, I've learned it should be used just for storage, SMB/NFS/iSCSI. And even iSCSI I'm not sure about.