We documented and shot every single event in our lives. We can’t travel back in time, but we can capture these moments in images and films. We’re all living in the digital age. The demand for safe data storage at home is growing. To keep your precious experiences, a NAS will be safer than external hard drives or other cloud storage since it will automatically build redundant data via RAID type.
Synology DiskStation is the designation and brand name under which the Taiwanese company Synology sells various Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. Synology is one of the global market leaders in the NAS segment.
A NAS is a file server with its own operating system that makes its storage space available over the network. The systems work autonomously and usually save the data file-based in a directory structure. The file systems appear on the connected client systems as shared directories or file systems.
It makes storage space available to the various applications and clients via the network. It usually saves the data on a file basis and, depending on the type, can also be used as cloud storage via the Internet or for streaming audio and video content. For a one-time payment, a NAS allows you to add a lot of storage that can be accessible by all users on the network. Having complete control over your private memories means having 100% data ownership.
The various NAS products from Synology differ in terms of technical features and functions such as capacity, maximum number of possible drives, processor performance, size of RAM, network connections, reading speed, power consumption, device size, supported drive types, supported RAID levels, video transcoding and others.
NAS systems allow the configuration of individual user and access rights. Depending on the configuration, files or directories are only accessible to certain users or user groups. The connection to the network is cable-based via Ethernet or wireless via WLAN. Most NAS devices support different RAID levels for mirroring data or increasing data throughput.
In short, the devices work like a kind of small server and even have their own file system and rudimentary management options for users, groups and passwords. In addition to central data management, this also enables file releases and active directory integration. In addition, most NAS devices have a USB interface via which they can either be expanded or used as a print server.
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Useful features in Synology Photos
Synology Photos on DSM 7 allows the user to create people albums. In the person album, a folder is created for each recognized person with the help of face recognition, where the corresponding photos are saved. It is only about sorting the photos with recognized people.
Each user can now decide for themselves whether they want to activate face recognition in their personal area. Scanning all photos for face recognition the first time takes some system resources. However, it does not represent a performance bottleneck in normal operation.
The photos can not only be viewed and managed at home in the home network, but also via the Internet. It is possible to access your photo collection from anywhere. To do this, the Disk Station must be accessible via Internet.
You can automatically back up your entire photo library from a smartphone to the NAS with Synology Photos. This requires the Synology Photos app. The app is available for iOS and Android.
Try it yourself on Synology Free Demo Site
Only Synology Photos can be installed on DSM 7. With the package, you can organize and manage your entire photo collection on the NAS. Synchronizing photos from the smartphone with the disk station, viewing the entire photo collection on the smartphone or via a browser is not a problem. We find the handling very convenient. Especially the interface is much fresher and more attractive than the old DS Photo Station.
Installing the package is very easy. Find the Synology Photos package under Package Center and install it. No settings need to be made during installation. If you haven’t already activated User Home Service, you will be prompted to do so during installation.
If each user wants to store their photos in their personal folder, the user home service must be activated so that the corresponding home directory is created.
