4.0 out of 5 stars
Be sure of what you need in a NAS and do your research first
Reviewed in Canada on 21 September 2020
Like many folks who look to a NAS to collate and organise the plethora of photos and videos on their devices and cloud storage, I landed on this model after reading a recommendation in PC Magazine. Given the review and the reasonable price, I decided on this NAS and ordered it with a couple of Seagate IronWolf 4TB NAS drives. After a week or so, I've accumulated some thoughts and lessons to pass along to folks in the same decision point. I hope these help your decision and alleviate some frustrations beforehand.
First, this is no Apple device. If you are just looking for a plug and play device that focuses only on easy storage solution on your local network, then keep looking. This NAS is, essentially, a Linux computer and with that comes all the flexibility and complexity of working in a unix computing environment. However, what comes with this is an incredible collections of tools and applications that I can't even begin to describe here. I had no idea what I was getting with a device like this. Security surveillance system, web hosting, email server, your own personal cloud accessible from anywhere on the internet.... the list goes on and on. This is not just a photo/file storage solution as I originally thought.
However, with this flexibility comes an expectation that you have a fair understanding of file systems, networking protocols and the like. While I mostly use Apple devices because it is easier to focus on being producti than spending your time trying to trouble shoot hardware issues like on my PC., I did work with a unix platform earlier in my career and appreciate the "geek" appeal of a device like this (if you allow me to frame it in that positive way). I love the puzzle factor of researching and experimenting how to mount all my MacOS, iOS and Windows devices to this NAS and share them to family and friends. That said, I imagine one of my family or friends trying to set one of these up and shudder at the number of calls I would get trying to help solve their problems. So, like I say, don't underestimate the background knowledge required to operate a device like this.
Another point, this device is definitely entry level. It's has a small amount of RAM and a slower CPU relative to more expensive models and did not give me the performance speeds I was hoping for. I had been using an Apple Time Capsule and External Drives shared from my PC to access over the local network and had those access speeds as my benchmark. After calling Synology Technical Services for advice, I realised the service agent was telling me in a polite way that I should have bought a higher performance model to get the results I was anticipating. Having now accepted this fact, I am now content to live with my decision until I feel the need to upgrade in a few years.
Another VERY important point to recognise if this your first NAS, make sure you shut off ALL unessential processes as you start to transfer all your digital photos and videos over to it. While the initial setup and configuration was easy and largely hands off, once the drives are configured and the DSM software installed to manage the system, you are pretty much on your own to figure things out. So like I normally do, I start turning things on to see what they do. This included running things like the indexing software and media generation software, both CPU intensive processes. When I started moving files to the NAS, these processes kicked in and started working on the files immediately bringing the system to a grinding halt. Transfer speeds were in the order of kb/s. Imagine moving 100K plus photos and videos at that rate! it was taking days to move a few files that would have taken minutes to transfer to my Time Capsule. So, turn off ALL your unnecessary processes, transfer the files and then turn them back on. Or just break down and spend the buck for a higher performing model.
I mentioned Tech Services. They were very good. I submitted a ticket and they were back within a day. Service was friendly and helpful. I could send them my system logs so that they could quickly see that my problem was related to the indexing program. In addition to tech services, the Synology Website has so many great step by step tutorials, FAQs and some videos. As I set up this device, I could find just about everything I needed on the Synology site. Anything that I couldn't was accessible through a blog somewhere. Again, it is not an Apple approach but unlike Apple's approach you have complete control at your disposal.
Finally, I did buy this for managing photos. There are two Synology applications for this, Photo Station and Moments. Both have strengths and weaknesses. It would be so nice to have the best of both together and, as I understand it, this is coming with the next major update of DSM (i.e. version 7) but for now, you kinda have to pick one and stick with it. Rather than highlight the features of both here, you will find many sites that review these. Neither are quite Lightroom, Google Photos or Apple Photos but I have high hopes that the new version will bring the best of all these.
Hope you find this useful.
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