Synology at Computex 2025
The time has come for this year's Computex also known as Taipei International Information Technology Show. One of the largest tech shows in the world is held annually in Taipei, Taiwan, hometown of Synology.
While we can be sure that this year most exhibits will be AI-driven, Synology on the other hand will take the opportunity to present some upcoming new high-end systems, as well as upcoming products and services.
Among those, there will also be talk about AI, but more on that later on.
: PAS7700 - new active-active NVMe storage system
Just as the end of 2023 and the whole of 2024 was focused on the new Active Protect appliances such as DP7400, and a few desktop versions, running the latest ActiveProtect Manager, this time around Synology will present their new PAS series starting with a brand new PAS7700 model. The PAS system was already announced and presented last year during the 2024 Synology Solution Exhibition but looks like another year was enough to polish out all the details and present it on this year's Computex.
Dubbed a new active-active NVME storage system, the PAS7700 is a brand-new four-unit two-node product.
This system will have each 2U node equipped with an AMD EPYC 24-core CPU and 64GB of RAM (with up to 1TB). It will have a copper 1GbE management port and dual 10GbE Aquantia connectors. Added to that, it will be running an AMD EPYC native PCIe NVMe controller, as well as another one from ASMedia Technologies. A total of 48 drives across both nodes.
This new system will be redundant on each layer starting from the physical all the way to the protocol one ensuring mission-critical workloads are not interrupted on any level.
There is a chance it will be using a dedicated version of DSM just as the UC models do, but that remains to be seen. It will leverage popular business and collaboration applications offering speed and efficiency for a large number of users and data.
: GS-series - long-term data storage and archiving
Presented last year during Synology Solution Exhibition 2024, the GridStation lineup will be getting a new, smaller 48-node model, GS3400.
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2024 Exhibition - GridStation lineup was presented
Just like the GS6200 96-node version, this smaller model will also be primarily focusing on long-term archiving, making it an ideal candidate for distributed file and object storage solutions.
While almost half in size, the GS3400 will probably allow about 10 petabytes of raw storage, which will be more than enough for any demanding system that will be utilizing it.
: Active Protect Appliance - prepopulated backup solutions
As already mentioned, 2024 was mainly dominated by two new products, the BeeStation, as well as ActiveProtect Appliance.
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ActiveProtect Manager is the new operating system controlling the DP lineup of backup devices
Both of these will be getting some attention this time around again with new models coming out in 2025.
Starting with the DP lineup, the DataProtection models will probably introduce a new rack version of their DP7000 series. Last year Synology rolled out their top model the DP7400, a 12-bay turn-key backup solution.
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Review of the DP7400 backup appliance
These backup appliances are built on top of the success of the DSM ActiveBackup for Business package in this new ActiveProtect Manager version has evolved into a proper centralized backup management platform.
Along with this single rack model, Synology also introduced two desktop versions of the DP family. The DP340, and DP320. A four and two-bay version with less capacity but still an all-in-one backup appliance that will satisfy any small to medium business demand.
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DP320 - a two bay ActiveProtect Appliance
DP systems come pre-populated with Synology-branded hard drives both HAT3300 and HAT5300, as well as their SSD SAT5200 series.
: BeeStation Plus - private cloud faster and bigger
Speaking of pre-populated systems, an already mentioned system from last year is getting some upgrades in terms of a new model. A very successful BeeStation, a family or small team-oriented backup, sync, and share system has been upgraded to BeeStation Plus.
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BeeStation BST150-4T, a new turn key 4TB backup solution for the home
Presented for the first time during this year's CES in Las Vegas, the new BeeStation Plus has all the right upgrades in all the right places.
The BeeStation Plus will come with more RAM, a better CPU, and more storage space that will also be running with a faster HAT3310 8TB 7200 RPM disk. Unlike the 4TB version, the new Plus model will come with some active cooling to help out with heat management due to an Intel 4-core CPU and a faster drive.
Considering that it will be running a popular Intel Celeron J4125 processor, the Plus version will have the option to support the PLEX media server platform as well in its latest BSM 1.3 OS version that just came out.
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BSM 1.3 mainly focuses on BeeStation Plus support and its new PLEX support
This comes as no surprise as the BeeStation Plus model almost equals in specifications as the DS224+ two-bay NAS.
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Review of the DS224+
DS224+ is a home and small-business NAS device that is powered with DSM OS and offers a lot of possibilities for its users, including support for PLEX transcoding thanks to Intel's QuickSync technology that is part of this particular Celeron lineup.
There is no doubt that this BeeStation version will become more appealing to customers compared to last year's model due to its specification upgrades.
: VSaaS - Synology Surveillance Station in the cloud
One more platform that was also glimpsed at the 2024 Exhibition show was Synology's new upcoming C2 Surveillance (VSaaS). A cloud-hosted video monitoring built on top of their popular on-prem Surveillance Station platform.
With the introduction of their branded on-prem and cloud surveillance cameras that will also be presented this year, it was logical to have a cloud version of their surveillance system.
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PoE-powered on prem surveillance cameras the BC500 and TC500
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Another on-prem version of their first wifi surveillance camera the CC400W
To make all this work not just for the cloud but on-prem as well, Synology will introduce a rack-based NVR model to expand on the existing 2021 DVA3221 and the DVA1622. Along with that, a new PoE network switch and a few more cameras both for on-prem and cloud.
Just like the hard drive lineup, Synology will come out with its branded MicroSD cards. It is still unclear if these will be exclusive, or will Synology cameras continue to work with other "third-party" cards.
Considering how valuable this line of products is to the company it comes as no surprise that it wants to expand its portfolio with both new hardware and C2 services.
: AI productivity suite
About a month ago, Synology rolled out (currently still in beta) their upcoming integration with AI.
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Called AI Console, this integration will allow Synology to integrate popular AI LLMs into all their productivity and collaboration tools. They have already started with MailPlus, and next up will be Synology Office. That means that soon we will have AI support inside all office apps that Synology offers.
This was first announced back at Computex 2023, but still no working beta until a month ago.
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Another addition to the whole Office suite is a new version of their popular Synology Chat platform, called Synology ChatPlus. Just as Chat was Synology's answer to SLACK, Discord, and other channel-bassed platforms, so will ChatPlus try to be the answer to Microsoft Teams.
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Review of the Synology Chat platform
With a clear focus on better team collaboration, the new ChatPlus also has an upgraded UI with a new feature focusing on on team management and a new video platform called Synology Meet.
The current Chat solution already offers a decent amount of features, including audio and video. While those are using Jitsi as their backend, it will be interesting to see how the new Synology Meet will work and what prerequisites and features will it have.
: X25 lineup refresh
Last but not least, the X25 model refresh. Synology will be coming out with about half a dozen new models in the first half of this year. Their plus 4-bay model, the DS925+ has already been released, as well as their new five and eight-bay.
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What needs to be mentioned when it comes to X25 models is that Synology changed its disk policy moving forward. Looking at all the announcements for the upcoming period it is clear that the company is moving to a more straightforward direction towards business and enterprise market segment.
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As a result, the new policy is important to consider if you're planning to purchase a new NAS with third-party disks. Drives not included on the compatibility list will be unverified or potentially incompatible. For X25 devices, if you wish to maintain technical support and warranty, it's crucial to use only drives from the compatibility list.
This doesn't imply that third-party drives won't work with new models, but it may take time for them to receive Synology's approval. In the meantime, ensure you use the listed drives only.
That about covers the upcoming Computex 2025 event and new hardware, software, and services from Synology. More detailed articles and review articles will follow up once all the details are known and presented, and selected models delivered.
