The old blacklist code for Kingston and Transcend that was there in the past. You can see it's obviously artificial to blacklist by brand. It was odd that I encountered it while trying a Crucial stick too. Also note that the error messages will always turn up at boot but can be dismissed. Psychologically though, you will always be wondering if the incompatible RAM is there for a reason.
Code:
{"model_number":"Blacklist","recommend":true,"manufacturer":"[\"Kingston\",\"Transcend\",\"0198\",\"014F\"]"}
This is why I cannot recommend the NAScompares RAM guide blindly -
1) They obviously list Kingston RAM in their recommendations list.
2) The links are affiliate links that earn the site owner commission when purchases are made. So there's a commercial incentive for them to recommend RAM, which makes the recommendation a little more dubious.
3) He even lists untested RAM? Isn't it supposed to be a compatibility list?
Finally found one of the older references I came across while researching RAM. It was posted about a year ago now, and Synology has had new OS updates since then, so things could have changed. Will quote him in full here.
https://www.synoforum.com/threads/ram-for-ds1621.4612/post-27491
Robbie said:
Before we get lost in the permutations of experience vs specifications vs artificial vendor lock it is worth reading back a little to find that the vendor check is currently running inconsistently. It only runs at cold boot too, so whatever people are running it may take many months before the memory warning comes up.
For some the warning will never 'display' as they don't have that notification set in DSM - but when detected it will be recorded and if found give problems when it comes to tech support and warranty.
Dual-rank memory is a physical form-factor not to confused with dual-channel, where identical pairs of sticks are run together for increased memory bandwidth. Synology has pushed the idea that dual-rank should only be used for 2666MT/s and above for stability. Maybe this was once true where 2666 was the new memory on the block, but it isn't a thing now yet Synology sticks with it out of habit.
From this bit onwards I will stick with how the Synology vendor-lock works which has little to do with the physical system's technical requirements. We have to call it for what it is - anticompetitive behaviour of the sort that breeches UK and EU law that unfairly targets other vendors of what is a commodity part.
As to specifics, the Synology code deliberately targets and blacklists by name any memory made by Kingston, Transcend and a few others, now and forever.
Synology also blacklists any single-rank memory at 2666MT/s and above, but as Synology 'makes' 2 DRAM modules that are single-rank and run at 2666 there are 2 specified exceptions. Incidentally those 2 exceptions are actually made by 2 different OEMs that would otherwise be blacklisted. Go figure.
One of the other locks circles back to 2666MT/s memory. If it is above or below 2666MT/s it will be flagged. This is despite the fact that faster memory will always run at a lower speed and that the Ryzen CPU is capped at 2400MT/s. So Synology's 2666MT/s is running down-clocked at 2400MT/s and Synology's own (older) 2400MT/s RAM will also trigger the vendor lock.
Presumably Synology is banking on customer inertia and their small scale to avoid a court case.
It was not always this way, using my DS1517+ as an example, the memory compatibility settings were very simple, albeit they did dip a toe in the water by setting an artificial max RAM limit of 16GB:
{"success":1,"list":[{"model_number":"RAM1600DDR3L-4GBx2","recommend":true},{"model_number":"RAM1600DDR3L-8GBx2","recommend":true}],"nas_model":"ds1517+"}
There's more good info in the thread, including users sharing various models of RAM sticks. It's interesting to note that less commonly known brands like Arch and TimeTec will get pass the RAM blacklist
===
Here in another post on 1 Jan 2021, a user had also reported that Crucial RAM gave him the error on boot (the same error I got on my 420+)
https://www.synoforum.com/threads/crucial-ram-stopping-error-on-reboot.5025/
johnbor said:
Ok, so I have a New
DS1819+ and installed a 32GB Kit from crucial (2x16gb) DDR4
I know its not synology ram but there ram is so expensive.
The problem every time I do a reboot I get that error message
"Detected non-Synology memory module. Please refer to our official website and select authentic Synology memory modules for better system reliability.
1. Inserted incompatible memory modules"
The unit appears to work perfect with the new ram but
Is there a way to disable that message from reoccurring when it reboots?
===
More info:
This was the 3 year old post that got me a bit worried about bad memory. OP said Crucial RAM installed fine and passed memory tests, but over time led to crashes and he lost data. Some other replies of users sharing the same thing. I just don't want my NAS to crash and I lose data, so I am a bit more wary if the device throws up incompatibility errors.
There were some more posts about unofficial memory upgrades causing their NVMe caches to fail even when they passed the memory check and did not throw up errors at boot, but I can't seem to find it now.
tl;dr: It's really not easy to upgrade the NAS now, so idk what Synology is thinking. Good luck, and may the RAM and HDD you buy work well without issues!
