Synology showed up at Computex 2026 with a message that’ll sound painfully familiar to anyone who’s tried to buy tech hardware lately: the supply chain mess may have cooled, but the RAM crunch is still messing with the NAS business.
Chad Chiang, who runs Synology’s Europe operation, used the Taipei trade show to look back at a bruising 2025—one where memory chips, not flashy new features, became the thing that decided what companies could ship and what customers could actually buy.
2025: When “Out of Stock” Became the Default Setting
Synology’s recap of 2025 boils down to this: component availability stayed ugly, and RAM was the main choke point. Prices bounced around. Lead times were unreliable. And when you build network-attached storage boxes—gear that lives or dies by how much memory you can put inside—RAM shortages don’t just slow you down. They dictate your product lineup.
This wasn’t a Synology-only problem. The whole NAS and pro storage market got dragged into the same mud. Vendors were stuck eating higher production costs or passing them along to customers who were already tired of paying “shortage pricing” for basic infrastructure.
Why Synology Keeps Talking About Europe
Chiang’s job is Europe, and he made it clear the region isn’t some side quest for Synology. Europe is a big, steady base of customers—especially the kind of mid-sized businesses and public-sector organizations that buy NAS gear because they need it to work, not because it looks cool in a rack.
Synology’s presence at Computex—the biggest computer industry show on the planet—wasn’t just marketing theater. It was also a signal: the company wants to look stable and in-control even while logistics and parts sourcing keep throwing punches.
Europe’s Real-World Problem: You Can’t Buy What Isn’t Shipping
In Europe, the supply constraints hit where it hurts: availability. Synology’s ability to meet demand—especially for small and mid-sized business NAS systems—took a direct hit from the RAM bottleneck.
And here’s the part buyers don’t love admitting: when gear is scarce, people stop shopping for the “right” model and start shopping for the model that’s actually on a shelf. The article suggests delays likely pushed customers to consolidate around whatever was in stock, instead of waiting weeks—or months—for the exact configuration they wanted.
Computex 2026: The Industry’s Coping Session
Computex 2026 doubled as a stage for companies like Synology to explain how they’re trying to protect themselves from the next round of shortages. The playbook is familiar: lock down supply, reduce dependence on a single bottleneck component, and diversify where parts come from.
Synology’s takeaway from 2025 is blunt: geopolitics and economic cycles can still whip the storage industry around fast. So manufacturers are being pushed—again—to build tougher supply chains instead of betting the farm on “normal” returning.
Sources
Forum des NAS (News officielles): https://www.forum-nas.fr/forums/news-officielles.24
Cachem interview with Chad Chiang: https://www.cachem.fr/interview-chad-directeur-synology-france
Cachem editorial (June 19, 2024): https://www.cachem.fr/edito-19-mai-2024
Techgoondu on Computex 2026: https://www.techgoondu.com/2026/06/05/computex-2026-synology-pitches-new-storage-software-to-make-ai-easier-safer
Synology Computex 2026 page: https://event.synology.com/en-global/computex-2026
