DSM 7.1 gets close to rollout, prompting Synology to phase out another series of NAS models, including relatively recent ones.
It has taken an unusually long time for DSM (the operating system for Synology NASes) version 7 to be finished. Usually when a new major version of DSM is released, a few models are dropped in terms of support. So for the past few years, users could take advantage of their purchase for a long time: if it was running DSM 6.2x, they were fine. Now Synology seems to be catching up and phasing out ‘old’ models. It is striking that the ‘in-between update’ DSM 7.1 mentions a whole series of devices for which this will be the last update. For example, much of the Plus series from 2015 have reached their end station with 7.1. The countdown has also begun for the + models from 2014. In addition, we even see a first 2016 model mentioned in the list.
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Note: it means that the models listed in the table (see screenshot at the top of this article) will still run 7.1. Everything after that, however, will no longer be vailable. In fact, that’s a shame for those NAS’s, because just about everything from 2014 in terms of throughput – the most essential number of a NAS for most users – is just as fast as most currently available models. Many make little or no use of the extras that DSM has to offer. In short: there is going to be a lot of unnecessary electronic waste. It is also true that version 6.2x will receive security updates only until June of next year. It might have been more convenient to just keep making security updates. Under the hood, Synology DSM is simply based on Linux after all. Which would have made releasing security updates a relatively simple task.
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In short: for all Synology NAS’s that were already excluded from DSM 7, the clock starts ticking faster. Of course, even if a NAS is no longer supported it will still function. It’s just that security holes are not being closed anymore. And that is certainly not a pleasant thought in these times. So at least remove such a non-supported NAS from the cloud, if you had made it accessible there.