OK, I used to have an old 1 bay diskstation which I just filled w/ whatever spare drives I had. Never any trouble, probably ran for 13 yrs w/ various drives demoted from my internal pc bays. Now i have a new synology 2 bay, and had endless trouble using spare drives in it. Reds were just unusably loud. Random spare pc disks consistently failed power on regularly (but only in the DS). In desperation, I got these synology branded drives and everything just works. So, I guess times have changed. Fortunately, these are quiet, work, and aren't even at a horrid premium as I expected them to be. So, I could have saved myself a LOT of time and a little money just going with these from the start, I guess, instead of trying to be cheap. Mixed feelings about that, tbh, but these work, are quiet, and reasonably priced.