UPDATE: SYNOLOGY has confirmed that they will allow the non-Synology unverified drives to be used with these and future units also, though there are limitations.
Not so long ago, Synology launched their own SSDs - SNV3400, SNV3500, and SAT5200. Offering better performance than the regular SSDs thanks to deeper integration in DSM, these SSDs had mostly positive reviews, apart from the high pricing.
Today, Synology Launched Spinning hard drives under their brand - Synology HAT5300. Naming seems to be similar to SSD, where
- H probably stands for hard drive
- AT probably for SATA interface
- 3 for 3.5" form factor.
On the newly launched Synology NAS, you will only be able to use the validate drives, and HAT5300s seems to be the only large capacity drives that are validated. Here is what we know so far about these drives
Synology HAT5300 is mostly based on Toshiba MG
Ok, Synology is not the first company to sell an HDD from a large vendor branded under them. HP, Dell, and IBM already do it. They buy from one of the 3 manufacturers of HDDs ( WD, Seagate, or Toshiba) and sell under their brand. Synology HAT5300 has a 5 years warranty, so it has to be an enterprise-grade ( WD Ultrastar, Seagate Exos, or Toshiba MG) Looking at the specifications, we think it's an MG.
Synology HAT5300 is different from the OEM Drive
Even though HAT5300 is based on MG, its not just an MG drive with a Synology label. It has a tweaked microcode/firmware. Think of it as a Toshiba Hardware, controlled by Synology Firmware. Since it has a specific firmware, it has a better performance too.
Synology HAT5300 has a better performance
HAT5300 offers an advantage - A much better performance. Synology has cited a multi-client seq. read performance gain of up to 23%. This is similar to what you saw in SSD - When a manufacturer knows what they need in a hard drive, they can trim all the non-essentials from the firmware and make it faster. Synology is also able to update the HDD firmware from within DSM, so they can keep pushing future tweaks to the HAT5300 via DSM update.
New Synolgy NAS will only allow Validated Drives
All the new Business models will only allow the use of validated drives ( that's only SAT5300 in large capacities for now).
Earlier, the use of non-validated drives was a "use at your own risk", but now you CAN'T use a non-validated drive. Storage Pools and SSD caches cannot be created if you use any other drives.
RS3621RPxs, RS3621xs+, RS4021xs+, and all future business/enterprise series models will follow this policy of allowing only validated drives.
SAT5300 only works on Synology 17 and newer series
You can't use this drive with any other storage vendor since the firmware is specific and Synology won't offer a warranty for use on other drives. Not that there will be an advantage in using these drives elsewhere either, but we thought we would warn you anyway.
You can't even use these drives with old Synology NAS , though this may change with DSM update. Currently, the Synology NAS series up to 17 seems to be compatible but 16 and earlier series are not compatible, Any model released within the last 3 years can use SAT5300. Any Expansion unit will have to match the model of the drives used in the main unit.
