Synology NASes are more expensive than DIY

[System Error Message]

In the first picture behind the router, synology's rackmountable storage server, way more expensive and slower than it would be to build your own with equivalent number of drives using a similar case.

[Mod note: These posts moved from another thread.]

 

[sfx2000]

In the first picture behind the router, synology's rackmountable storage server, way more expensive and slower than it would be to build your own with equivalent number of drives using a similar case.

We're starting to get off-track...

Seeing more and more from Synology and others that are getting into the lower end rackspace storage arena - not a bad thing, as not everyone needs a NetApp or EMC filer.. they perform decently enough for the given use case.

 

[System Error Message]

We're starting to get off-track...

Seeing more and more from Synology and others that are getting into the lower end rackspace storage arena - not a bad thing, as not everyone needs a NetApp or EMC filer.. they perform decently enough for the given use case.

Thats the problem, lower end rackspace storage from companies like synology are much more expensive than if you built your own with a similar case. If at the price they charge it included some nice 5 year warranty and support it would make the price worth it.

 

[L&LD]

Anything we can build for ourselves will be much less expensive than what an established company will offer a similar product for.

The people with the time and the skills to build their own won't be tempted by Synology's product.

There will always be others though that will trade the time and any skills they may be lacking for a few dollars more cash.

Whether or not it comes with a 5 year warranty and/or support option (their own build wouldn't have it either way).

 

[sfx2000]

The people with the time and the skills to build their own won't be tempted by Synology's product

And if you have a lot of servers and storage needs - look at Facebook and Google - they're designing and building their own

 

[RMerlin]

People often overlook the price of a software product, and the support costs associated with it. It adds to the value.

 

[sfx2000]

People often overlook the price of a software product, and the support costs associated with it. It adds to the value.

I agree with RMerlin - in production, having the support contracts in place means the difference between uptime and downtime and the response when things go wrong.

SW costs - it's some, but it's the support lifeline that is the primary cost driver with data center gear...

 

[sfx2000]

People often overlook the price of a software product, and the support costs associated with it. It adds to the value.

And perhaps to give a sense of scale/scope - I spend $1.2M on a blade center and applications - the first year support is generally free, but we're looking at roughly $800K/year support/licenses each year after that, which is mostly Opex - but then I also get 24/7 follow the sun support from the vendor's call center, a dedicated customer service manager that I can call _any_ time, and 1-hour response if we need a field tech to travel to the data center to swap parts, or even push the big red button...

(and that's just one - I had contracts with IBM, HP, Oracle, RedHat, Amdocs, Mavenir, Commverse, Nokia-Siemens, and Ericsson, along with Cloudmark and Proofpoint)

 

[System Error Message]

And perhaps to give a sense of scale/scope - I spend $1.2M on a blade center and applications - the first year support is generally free, but we're looking at roughly $800K/year support/licenses each year after that, which is mostly Opex - but then I also get 24/7 follow the sun support from the vendor's call center, a dedicated customer service manager that I can call _any_ time, and 1-hour response if we need a field tech to travel to the data center to swap parts, or even push the big red button...

(and that's just one - I had contracts with IBM, HP, Oracle, RedHat, Amdocs, Mavenir, Commverse, Nokia-Siemens, and Ericsson, along with Cloudmark and Proofpoint)

Its not wonder google and facebook have their own tech team to deal with the support requirements and their own software.

Im mainly talking about the lower end though, places that wouldnt buy a professional cisco router for example, that have to have the same ISP everyone else has. Its a question of how much does the product cost vs building yourself and comparing the benefits that the product offers such as warranty and support. I know software does count since if you built one yourself and used windows server you'd still be paying for software.

 

[stevech]

besides cost, DIY has a dearth of features as compared to Synology or QNAP

 

[zoomee]

Being a system overclocker with 20yrs of experience it wouldn't have taken me much effort to build a custom NAS.

Reason I have always gone for QNAP and Synology NAS boxes at the extra premium though is quite simply the software. This is where these organisations differ from others in their product offerings - The software is simple, effective and highly reliable - something difficult for average users to achieve with custom NAS boxes.

Still makes me laugh to this day when I read about people running HP microservers or the like and then installing hax0red Synology OS on to them - sort of defeats the purpose as they are always a couple of versions behind and have to faff around to get it all working.

I 'd much rather pay the premium and have a product simply just work. Got enough Tech in my life than have to worry about or faff around with a custom made NAS.

 

[dgcruzing]

Interesting enough this week I did an upgrade of my Moodle development package and saw they are using Bitnami installers.. going to be interesting to see how this all pans out. As makes adding in software packages a snap for companies and individuals...