Synology DS224+ crashing repeatedly with no log evidence -- anyone seen this?
I have a Synology DS224+ NAS running DSM 7.3.2-86009 Update 3 that has been crashing repeatedly over the past month. The unit (which is less than a year old, with brand new Synology drives) runs 24/7 in my empty house while I'm long-term away in another country, making physical access difficult and requiring me to call in a favor for a power cycle each time it goes down.
The crashes leave no useful evidence -- the DSM Log Center shows nothing around the crash times, /var/log/messages has no entries for the crash periods (the log simply stops and resumes after the reboot), and dmesg shows only benign SATA negotiation errors on the reboots. S.M.A.R.T. tests on both drives come back healthy. When my friend visited to power cycle the unit, all front LEDs were green, so apparently the NAS thought it was running normally but was completely unreachable on the network (EHOSTUNREACH). Active Insight shows the device going offline but has no pre-failure metrics or warnings to offer.
As I write this, the NAS is down for the 3rd time in the space of a month. Before this latest event, I had set up a weekly scheduled reboot via Task Scheduler as a possible mitigation, which has run successfully for 2 or 3 weeks, but this latest crash happened the day before it was scheduled to reboot. I'm also thinking about adding a smart plug for remote power cycling since it's a real hassle for my friend to have to go fix this for me.
The NAS is used primarily for file shares and Hyper Backup to Backblaze B2. I also have a DS124 on the same network that the 224+ also backs up to, which has never once crashed. Has anyone experienced similar unexplained hard crashes on a DS224+ or other recent Synology models, particularly where the unit appears healthy from the outside but is completely unresponsive on the network? Any advice or thoughts on what I can do to monitor or prevent these crashes?
(Also, I ran a DS214 (I think that was the model) for 6-8 years and never had these kinds of issues. I only upgraded to the 224+ because I felt like my original unit was getting a little long in the tooth.)
TLDR: Newish DS224+ halting mysteriously with no information about what's causing the crashes. I'm long-term remote from the unit, so I have to have a friend go reboot it when it happens. Frustrated.
**UPDATE:** Well first of all, I don't know how I missed this, but it's a 225+, not a 224+ sorry. I did get a friend to come over and get it back online, and here's what I know so far. First of all when he arrived at the unit there were 2 orange lights, static, I believe. I asked him to take a picture so I could see clearly which LEDs were orange, but he misunderstood and did not get the snap of the front panel in that state. I am guessing it was the drive LEDs, which could indicate hardware errors, or just that drive couldn't be located/port disabled (per manual).
We cycled the power and everything came back up normally. I ran S.M.A.R.T. tests, BTRFS scrub, RAM test, and checked logs. Nothing found to indicate why the halt. My friend did say there was some crazy weather and power events around the time it seems the NAS crashed. So right now I am thinking it's either PSU or the UPS. I don't know why a PSU on a new unit (purchased in November 2025) would fail, but I suppose it's possible. With the UPS, who knows -- the one I have doesn't log anything and although it shows healthy battery (replaced in December), I know these can show 100% health and then fail when there's a power failure. There's now a smart plug in the mix, so if needed I should be able to cycle the machine myself in the future.
Thanks for the suggestions. If I figure anything else out, I'll update.