Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Synology Rackstations and Diskstations are dying due to a bug in Intel Atom C20xx CPUs - Is yours next?

For the low-down on this, see the Register article here.

Though The Register mentioned Synology, they did not mention that large numbers of Rackstation and Diskstation NAS devices of every type have used the affected Atom chips. 

The DS1815+ is certainly getting attention, but my own RP2416RP+ - something that I would hope qualified at a mid-upper-end model, at least when I purchased it - is similarly affected.  Lower-end model owners have also reported issues.  And at this point there is no reason to think that every Intel Atom C20xx device is not affected.

(And here I was mulling over the idea of retiring my old server, since my Rackstation has been doing so well.  Good thing electricity rates are cheap enough that it wasn't worth turning off the old kit.)

So far Synology has not released any statement regarding the issue or what steps, if any, they are going to take to correct it.  They are probably still trying to figure out how to minimize the impact to their bottom line.

It does have to be said that this is hardly Synology's fault - they trusted Intel, and Intel let them down - hard.  Having lived through two such scenarios already myself, I do have some sympathy for them.

However, that is not any argument for saying that Synology customers should bear the cost of this.  I had to live through a nightmare scenario of having defective firmware in my server hard drives (all 16 of them) and am most definitely not happy about having my new 'n shiny "upgraded" server revealed to be a time bomb.

Accordingly, I personally encourage every 'Station owner that has a valid warranty to submit a support ticket at this link, and push for a full and complete replacement of their affected unit(s).