review

Synology DS725+ & DS925+ announcement

Luka Manestar

16 Mar 2025 — 8 min read

On March 13th, we had an interesting announcement from Synology that was somewhat unexpected. Images from an apparent Synology event presenting upcoming 2025 models started showing up on various web sites.

Now, whether this was planned or not remains uncertain, but one thing is for sure: It's out there now.

While 2024 was completely dominated by the new BeeStation models and ActiveProtect devices, Synology looks ready to refresh its most famous segment of products: the popular "+" and "XS+" series.

A total of 9 models were announced that will get a refresh in the upcoming quarters, starting from 2-bay up to 16-bay rack models.

The complete list of devices is available on the link posted above, but among all of these, a few have had most of their specifications listed as well. Starting with one of the most popular ones, the DS725+ and DS925+. These are by far the most often mentioned and desired devices as they present the fastest 2/4-bay desktop models.

Often expandable, but mainly powerful and compact, both NAS models support all the features and applications that the DSM has to offer, and with Docker capabilities, open up room for many open-source and 3rd party solutions.

DS725+ (left) and DS925+ (right) concept images

Presently, from the information available we know that most of these devices will be AMD-driven in terms of the CPU, while some will remain on the Intel Celeron platform.

Make no mistake, all of the CPUs in the upcoming refresh are already used by current models and are old as far as 2018. While this might come as a surprise to some, this is Synology's way of doing things. Sticking with proven architecture, to better support current and future DSM versions as well as application packages.

The downside of this is, of course, unlocking the potential of a new CPU, less power consumption, better support, and so forth. By sticking with "true and tested" CPUs, Synology is playing it safe when it comes to compatibility, stability, and fewer issues for the end user, by turning their NAS models into more of an appliance device than ever before.

Speaking of an "appliance-like" device, we can't help but mention disk support and compatibility. Since the 2021 models, especially in the "XS+" and rack-based "+" models or better, Synology has started to push their brand of SATA and SSD/M.2 drives.

By push we mean that only Synology-branded drives were supported in terms of warranty and compatibility, and by extension Synology ticket support. Some devices also supported 3rd party disk models such as lower end "+" models, and of course the "value" and "J" series.

However, it has been four years since the campaign started, and with each passing year, Synology has started to trim down the 3rd party supported list with the new model refresh. On top of this, last year, with the introduction of the BeeStation model, we got the very first pre-populated consumer device.

This was sort of an announcement that Synology is not going to let this campaign go, and it actually might mean that all x25 models could be compatible only with Synology-branded drives.

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UPDATE 16/4/2025 - New official information on the disk compatibility policy.

New 2025 updated disk compatibility policy

If so, this could be proven problematic, especially for the upcoming DS625slim model, which only supports 2.5" drives. While Synology does offer their SAT5200 series of 2.5" SSDs, those are enterprise-grade drives and come with a 5-year warranty, but also with a higher-than-normal price.

In any case, it makes sense for Synology to retire the 3rd party drive support altogether and focus solely on their drives, as this will have a huge effect on their production, support, testing, and DSM development in the long run.

Circling back on the specifications that we know about the DS725+ and DS925+, especially when we compare them with their respective predecessors.

Several changes are important to mention when we compare the upcoming devices with the current models. The DS725+, compared to the DS723+, has double the initial RAM from 2 to 4GB (up to 32GB), 2x1GbE network was replaced with 1x 2.5GbE and 1x 1GbE, and the expansion slot that used to be eSATA has finally been replaced with a modern USB-C (6Gbps).

This will allow both the DS725+ and the DS925+ to accommodate the new DX525 expansion unit.

The most apparent loss from the previous version is the lack of PCIe support that allowed the DS723+/DS923+ a 10GbE addon card. Whether this is missing or is Synology simply limiting access to it remains to be seen. So while both new models will arrive with a single or double (in case of DS925+) 2.5GbE interface, neither of these will have the 10GbE support.

One might partially understand that the 2-bay DS725+ will be lacking the 10G support (considering that the V1500B has double the PCIe bandwidth compared to the R1600), but the DS925+ with a faster CPU could surely afford it if nothing else in the same add-on configuration as it did on the DS923+. Sadly, this is not the case.

Speaking of CPUs, we can see that the DS725+ has retained the 2-core (4-thread) AMD Ryzen R1600 from 2019, while the DS925+ has moved from that very same one to a quad-core AMD Ryzen V1500B from 2018.

Also of note, is that both devices will have the support for dual NVMe drives (mostly likely on the bottom of the device) that should allow for both caching support, as well as an option to create storage pools. Currently, a total of 8 models support it (from x21-x22-x23), including DS723+ and DS923+. It is safe to assume that the X25 series will follow along, but it is important to mention that only Synology-branded models are officially supported for this particular scenario.

The Intel supported x25 models will be the DS225+, DS425+ and the DS625slim running Intel Celeron J4125 CPU. The biggest update there that we know of, is the 2.5GbE network adapter that will mostly benefit the 6-bay DS625slim model.

Consider that particular device uses only SSDs in various RAID configurations, a limiting 1GbE from the previous DS620slim model will arrive as a welcome upgrade.

Price and release date

Apart from the limiting specifications at this moment, we have no price or release date in mind. It is clear that neither of these will arrive in Q1, considering the date, so the earliest we can expect them is Q2 or later.

In terms of pricing, following Synology pattern, the new models will cost the same as the current ones, if nothing else than since most of the hardware remains identical to the previous generation.

If the upcoming update is not something that you are looking forward to, it is worth mentioning that Synology has been running their "refurbished" program for a number of years via their Synology store.

The older models will be available there as well, fully refurbished with warranty once the current stock runs out, so getting an older model will also be an option in a way.

Once the models become available, we will have them in for review, hopefully before they hit the market, so be sure to come back and follow along.