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XPEnology commercial - would you buy it?


andale

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Hi @ all.

 

I know that this question was asked before in the survey but I would like to know how other users think about this topic.

 

If XPEnology or DSM itself would be available as a commercial license for use on any hardware - would you buy it? And what would you pay for it?

 

Maybe this would be interesting for both sides - the dev team and Synology.

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I would buy and around £50 would be a good 'entry' licence ie if Synology did a VMWare type solution - say freeware for two drives, then paid licences for 4, 8 etc - similar to camera licences. They could whitebox and hcl as well to limit support expectations.

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I would be happy to pay around £50 for an entry level.

A few things come to mind, though. Looking at the retail prices, I reckon that Synology would want to price it a bit higher to avoid cannibalising sales of their low end boxes - no "freeware" version, then - and also I believe we are using a number of the "enterprise" features for which they would expect a premium.

 

And then, if you buy a Synology box, you only get new versions for a limited period of time - either your box breaks and you buy a new one or they stop supporting your model. So they have a way of getting a continuing revenue stream from their existing customers. If they were, say, to produce a VMWare solution, then it would have to be time or version limited.

 

Finally, if I just want a simple NAS solution and I don't want to "play", then I would be better off buying one of the low end boxes, putting a couple of 4Tb drives in it and forgetting it.

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i recall I answered this already on another thread asking the same question.

 

and it was hands down Yes across board.

 

After all I do own several legit Synology boxes, the DSM OS is what keeps me going back to them.

 

but the overwhelming cost of their Larger hardware, it just ridiculously priced.

 

XPE should not become commercial else Synology will have ground to sue.

 

as long as XPE remains a fan base open source thing we'll be fine.

 

Now if Synology decides to release just DSM for every available hardware, I'll most definitely buy it, but I'll pay no more than $100 per machine, considering a Windows OS is aprox $150 per machine.

 

by the way FreeNAS became commercial, and NAS4Free (the original FreeNAS) remains open source, but they had to rewrite from the grounds up the code, to avoid law suit issues.

 

FreeNAS only focuses on high end machines, kind of like what Synology does, but I play and support low end machines, like old used abandoned hardware offices discard after they upgrade to a faster desktop, you find those free everywhere, these machines are still perfectly good as a file server.

 

So, that being said.

 

I think the current XPEnology is doing great, I wish to learn more on compiling kernels and KO modules for hardware that are still unsupported, and I'm trying to revive the x86 version of the project, as there are still tons of those hardware around.

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I had the thought about 'enterprise' features too. Looking at how in DSM 6 Synology have 'modularised' Hyper backup etc it's a small step to 'licence' different modules depending on use. So, light users get basic file/media/nas features, but larger scale business use would add licences for hyper backup, HA etc. The analogy being Windows Server standard/ent/dc etc

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I'd be willing to pay quite a bit more than £200 for a full blown license that is supported on standard PC hardware, I'd even be happy to pay again (slightly reduced perhaps) to move between generations of DSM, i.e. 5 to 6; 6 to 7 etc. as long as we got the incrementals as part of the original purchase or renewal. For Synology to make this happen, it cannot canabilise their lower end hardware as said so you'd be looking at a decent fee, addon prices for enterprise stuff, no support unless paid for etc... Make the hardware all inclusive and then make the software only community supported unless paid... then it might work as I suspect there are not that many that do this on a normal pc.

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If it is plug and play any hardware i would pay around $50-$75. Depends on support.

 

yup, that's exactly what I was thinking as well, on my previous reply when I said no more than $100

but in reality I was thinking between $50 to $75, with $100 being the absolute maximum if they are greedy.

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Why would they sell you DSM for $100?

 

Let's make this simple calculation. Average Xpenology box nowadays runs something like N3150 (my guess), which is equal to DS716+. DS716+ retails at around €500, while your custom box with more RAM comes around €250.

 

So who would buy they hardware, if their software costed only $100? I guess nearly 0 people. That means, if they wanted to still be selling hardware, software should cost so much, that average consumer would raither buy their hardware, than build their own NAS.

 

It's simple business, no secrets here. If they started selling DSM separately for a "normal" price, they would just turn into software developing company, since hardware sales would decline to 0 sooner or later.

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Why would they sell you DSM for $100?

 

Let's make this simple calculation. Average Xpenology box nowadays runs something like N3150 (my guess), which is equal to DS716+. DS716+ retails at around €500, while your custom box with more RAM comes around €250.

 

So who would buy they hardware, if their software costed only $100? I guess nearly 0 people. That means, if they wanted to still be selling hardware, software should cost so much, that average consumer would raither buy their hardware, than build their own NAS.

 

It's simple business, no secrets here. If they started selling DSM separately for a "normal" price, they would just turn into software developing company, since hardware sales would decline to 0 sooner or later.

 

Yes and no.. it would completely depend on how they did it.. If it was a no support model for software only, then you'd still see many, many people buy the 'supported' version with the hardware.. Since the cost of support is basically what you're paying extra for.

 

Also, Enterprise level hardware (rack systems) IT generally is not DIY. They'd likely still sell many enterprise systems regardless as well as extended support contracts.. So it wouldn't be a cut/n/dry situation if they did sell it for a low cost.

 

In the end, if they did a low-cost, or even free version, w/no support, you'd see Synology's 'beta test / bug test' group suddenly expand greatly AND they'd likely 'entice' people who otherwise would not have outright bought a synology box by giving a 'try before you buy' type scenario.

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Interesting views :smile: I fully agree that the dev team from XPEnology never should do the step forward to a commercial version. This would end in law suites.

 

What's impossible for Synology is the fact that there are thousands of possible hardware combinations (board, chipset, controllers, nics, etc.). It won't be easy for them to support them all. But what they could do is offer support for "qualified" hardware. Several big software manufacturers work in such a way. If you don't use the "qualified" hardware you won't get any support although you have a support contract which costs hundreds of €uros or $ (SolidWorks is one of these).

 

I think that they won't ruin their own hardware sells when a DSM license is available for buying. The usual home or SOHO user is happy when he has plug'n play equipment. Insert HDDs, push the button, do some mouse clicks - finished. Same for the business users. Buy it, use it and if doesn't work - call the support.

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What's impossible for Synology is the fact that there are thousands of possible hardware combinations (board, chipset, controllers, nics, etc.). It won't be easy for them to support them all. But what they could do is offer support for "qualified" hardware. Several big software manufacturers work in such a way. If you don't use the "qualified" hardware you won't get any support although you have a support contract which costs hundreds of €uros or $ (SolidWorks is one of these).

 

VMware is another great example, free fully featured, but when you want HA and other high end features you need to get a license.

 

Also they only support hardware in their "White Box" list, if it's not supported by them, then you are on your own.

 

most Small Businesses, SOHO, and Enthusiast runs the White Box VMware with ESXi, and they are still making big profit selling to large companies and data centers.

 

Synology just need to partner up with hardware suppliers like Lenovo, HP, Dell, LSI, Adaptec, etc...

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I thin one way they could sell a PC compatible DSM for DIY uses and still keep up demand for there own hardware NAS is to always have the PC DSM be a version behind of the current DSM. so DSM 6 is out now they will Sell DSM 5 for PC. They could also have the base DSM 5 and if you want the advanced features like surveillance station that would be an extra cost. You would also have to agree to using a system that might not be as reliable as synology hardware.

 

I would gladly give them my money with in reason and only if it came from synology.

 

I have my first xpenology server running for over 70 days. mainly used for plex with transcodeing and it has been running great much better then my other synology or my qnap.

 

 

It would be great to see happen but dont think it ever will.

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I thin one way they could sell a PC compatible DSM for DIY uses and still keep up demand for there own hardware NAS is to always have the PC DSM be a version behind of the current DSM. so DSM 6 is out now they will Sell DSM 5 for PC. They could also have the base DSM 5 and if you want the advanced features like surveillance station that would be an extra cost.

 

but... it's already exactly like this right now. :shock::-|

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true cant argue with that but as of now we are not really supporting synology also if it were something we were paying for i think there would be a bit of support for other hardware that might not be supported and other things. I dont know i like free but would gladly support a paid official version of DSM. just throwing my 2 cents around on the topic :smile:

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