What Does My Synology Drive Status Mean, and What Should I Do?
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Synology's DSM 7.4 help recommends replacing a Critical drive immediately, and says Healthy means the drive is in good condition or its warning was suppressed or disabled. Warning, Failing and Access Error are names from Synology's DSM 6.2 help: Warning means monitor the drive, and Failing and Access Error mean replace it immediately. The Warning and Critical at the top of the Storage Manager Overview are the overall system status, not one drive's status.
Check your situation
Safe steps
These actions can lose data. Do none of them until a copy exists elsewhere:
- Suppressing or disabling a drive warning. Synology says not to unless you accept the risk of data loss, because it does not solve the drive's issues.
- A drive in a storage pool at its maximum fault tolerance cannot be deactivated, because deactivating any drive would crash the pool.
- Repairing a storage pool erases all existing data on the replacement drive.
- Removing the wrong drive from the NAS by mistake.
- If a storage pool's status becomes Crashed, Synology says you can no longer repair it yourself.
- An Overview status of Critical means severe issues that may result in data loss.
- Back up your data before you replace, repair or reactivate a drive.[4]
- Open Storage Manager > HDD/SSD, select the drive and click Health Info for Synology's detailed suggestions.[4]
- Use Locate Drive before you pull a drive. It changes the drive indicator colour so you remove the right one.[1]
- If your NAS does not support hot-swapping, power it off before you remove or install any drive.[5]
What to buy, if anything
Answer the questions under "Check your situation" and this section narrows to what your case calls for. Until then every table is shown, each with the case it is for.
Replacement NAS drives by price per TB
Why this is here: A replacement only for a status at which Synology says to replace the drive (Critical, Failing, Access Error, Incompatible or Unrecognized), bought after the data is backed up. Confirm the model is on Synology's compatibility list for your NAS and meets Synology's size rule for repairing your pool. New 3.5-inch NAS and enterprise hard drives whose maker confirms CMR recording, sorted by price per TB on Amazon.com.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Overview's Warning the same as a drive's Warning?
No. The Warning and Critical at the top of Storage Manager's Overview are the overall system status. A drive's own status describes the condition of the drive itself and is shown under Storage Manager > HDD/SSD.
What do the orange and red drive colours mean in DSM 6.2?
Orange means the drive is in abnormal status: check its health status and allocation status. Red means critical issues were detected, and Synology says to replace the drive immediately.
My DSM 6.2 drive shows Crashed. Is that its health?
No. Crashed is an allocation status: the system has removed the drive from the storage pool. To keep using the drive, Synology says to deactivate it, then restart the NAS or remove and reinsert the drive.
Sources
- Synology DSM 7.4 Help: HDD/SSD checked 2026-10-14
- Synology DSM 6.2 Help: HDD/SSD checked 2026-10-14
- Synology DSM 7.4 Help: Storage Manager Overview checked 2026-10-14
- Synology: I received my monthly drive health report. Is there anything I should check for? checked 2026-10-14
- Synology DSM 7.4 Help: Repair a Storage Pool checked 2026-10-14
- Synology: There is an increase in my drive's bad sector count. What can I do? checked 2026-10-14
- Synology: Drive errors occurred, but I am not sure if they resulted from the drives or the drive slots checked 2026-10-14
- Synology: Frequently asked questions about S.M.A.R.T. test checked 2026-10-14
Facts on this page were reviewed on October 14, 2026. Prices and stock are from Amazon.com as of October 14, 2026.