Synology NAS. My experience.

D M B

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Morning guys,

I bought my Synology NAS last year, and to be honest, we rarely access our family photos etc as it just seems a bit of a chore. I wanted something I could access quickly and easily, and a nice clean user interface (if that's the right term).

I find the Synology layout and general feel a bit rubbish. Since our son arrived two years ago, we take loads of photos, and the whole point was to free up our phone memory and keep them all on the NAS. However, I seldom upload the photos for the reasons mentioned, and end up with a clogged phone memory again.

I've thought about buying a detached hard drive to use with the laptop, as an alternative, as I just prefer the look of something basic like Windows Photo Viewer. Maybe i'm stuck in my ways??

Any thoughts? I'm open to ideas. Just want to keep it simple ! Cheers.
 
How do you tend to access photos on the NAS? Do you use the DS Photo app on your phone/tablet? I find that via my my older TVs or blu-ray its still easy to access but not the best and on the newer TVs I use the App. You can also run Plex on the Synology that will backup automatically all your photos to the Synology.
 
I've got all my photos stored in my nas, I just make folders on the shared drive and put them in.... For viewing, I usually just use es file explorer. It's simple and easy...

Are you using the synology photo app on your phone ? Is that the part your struggling with ?

Stu
 
If you use the cloud synch, & you have a gmail account you can upload photos, & synch from your phone to gdrive.

So, you would have photos on the nas, but also backed up to the cloud.
 
I recently started using the DS File app on my phone to upload the latest batch of photos. This worked well to be fair.

Its mainly when signing in and viewing on the laptop to be honest, just seems quite a painful chore haha, I don't get on with the layout and find it all looks a bit tacky and dated if i'm honest.

I have this morning discovered the Photo Station, which appears to be an improvement, however I think im stuck with the same look for uploading other files such as music.

The main reason for purchasing the NAS was for a music server, running along side my Sonos Connect amp.
 
What operating system having you on your laptop? If Win 10 you can simply point it to the folder containing the photos and away you go.......
 
I have never used it but i am sure someone else might be able to point you in the right direction. With Win10 one click opens up the picture folder and that's it. You can even point your screen saver to the folder.
 
You should be able to set up share folders on the NAS and then have them appear in Windows 'Network Places' (or whatever it's called these days).

Accessing files on the NAS should be just like accessing files on the laptop built in harddrive or a USB thumb stick. No need to log in to the NAS to view the files, which seems to be what you're saying?
 
Ah right, maybe i've set it up wrong in the first place. I'll have a good look tonight.

Thanks for all your help :)
 
Just an update. After a good while trying to gain access (having forgotten my password !) I managed to remove the network credentials, allowing me to view all my NAS files via Windows the usual way, rather signing in to the NAS etc. This has made life much easier ! Thanks for all your help above.

Now if only I had upgraded to Windows 10 when I had the chance ! :( I'll blame my 2 year old son, and lack of time haha.
 
If you have problems seeing the screen ( ;) ) you can still upgrade for free to Windows 10.
 
I've just made the jump from a Drobo to Synology, thinking that it would be an easy transition (I've heard good things about the software).

However, I find the DSM confusing and very convoluted. It might be able to do more things than my Drobo, but I would not recommend it for the IT illiterate!

All I want to do is copy over files from my Drobo to the Synology in one go, but I can't.....

There are so many things that required to be set up, switched on/off etc..

The Synology is definitely not one for plug and play. In this respect, the Drobo was a much easier machine to use.
 
There are a lot of you tube videos on the synology. I think that a drobo uses it's own proprietary file system that can only be read by another drobo. (synology use ext4.)

or you copy over a network?
 
Yes, copying pics and vids over network. The copying works from Drobo to PC, but not Drobo to Synology.
 
The NAS kind of Drobo say they support SMB and AFP network protocols, Synology support SMB, NFS and AFP. SMB is also referred to as CIFS in some circles.

In DSM go to Filestation\Tools\Mount Remote\Folder\Mount CIFS Shared Folder
Folder = the network shared folder of the Drobo e.g \\DroboNAS\folder or the IP of the NAS instead of server name.
Account Name & Password = user account that exists on the Drobo NAS.
Mount To = a location on the Synology were the shared folder will appear.

If it works the Drobo should appear in Filestation.

Alternatively click on Filestation\Settings and under "Browse Local Files" tick the box, this should make the drives listed in Windows explorer appear in Filestation, if the drobo is drive in explorer it may appear this way.
 
Thanks Next010 - I managed somehow to transfer the files. After (trying) to follow a multitude of youtube videos, I did it after approx. 20 hours.

It maybe that I'm extra slow when it comes to IT stuff but really, Synology should make certain things a lot easier rather than having to set up things from scratch.

Saying that though, I am loving all the extra speed (connecting to my android TV on the Drobo FS via VLC took forever).

Also, I love accessing my home pics and vids on my iphone. Looking forward to using all the other features on my Synology.
 

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