3:58 versioning has saved my bacon at least twice. Both times I was working on a specific app and the data got corrupted while I was working on it (the app saves the file with each change). I do daily backups and hourly snapshots, so I wouldn’t have lost everything. But having versions let me start from where the problem occurred and I didn’t lose the work I did in the previous hour.
Great video as always! If i make a video request? Their is litterly not a single video on youtube that shows how to expose your NAS or Synology Drive with a domain name. Although i know how to, others might not! This would be a nice addition to your series! Anyway keep up the good work, we all appreciate you taking your time to make these.
Isn't that just under the external access tab i the control panel for dyndns? The dynamic dns provider should allow you to use whatever name you have registered as the domain name.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade No, you can set every specific service that synology offers under a different domain name and port. However that hasn't anything to do with i knowing how it works and others not haha
It ate up my mac disk storage, and said syncronization disabled due to lack of disk storage ( On Mac ). Is there a way to clear disk storage happened coz of this miss?
This is a terrific feature. I’ve been using iCloud Sync for years, and it’s been really reliable…but my Synology units have a lot more space. And are under my control.
Thanks for you in-depth review on this, seems like a fantastic new feature for macOS. Curious about how well the service performs with a small group of people, maybe 10, working on different files on the same share. What about multiple people working on files within the same folder? Have you run into any weird permissions issues or glitches with multiple users? Thanks!
It’s good but also terrible. A 2015 app released in 2022-23. I’ve tested it and it’s so close but so far too. Not all Synology’s fault, though, as they have to use legacy KEXTs to do what they need to.
Thanks Will for yet another awesome tutorial 👍🏼 I’m definitely going to ask to hire you in the near future to help check the setup of my NAS in the studio. See ya!
I found your vídeos as great help setting up my synology ! Although I synced a couple of folders in external samsung ssd T5 hd without enabling on demand sync
I installed this after watching your video. Thanks alot 👍🏾 But what is the difference between having this new way of accessing files and using the network feature already within the mac Finder app? Need a reason to disconnect.
So the primary reason you want to do this is if you work on files and need access to the NAS outside of the local network that you work on. Otherwise the sidebar (which is an SMB connection) likely is better for you
If I am already using Synology Drive on my Mac with everything saved locally, do I have to disconnect that and delete the existing local files first and then create a new sync task? Or is there a way I can adjust the setting from the old way to the On-Demand way? Thank you!
@@SpaceRexWill So after I delete the old task, and start the new task, there will be all the data from the old task just sitting on my computer. Can I safely delete that data?
Is this how to have Time Machine see my NAS? I have a shared folder created, and I see it on my computer under Network, but the time machine will not recognize it as an option for backups. I'm not very up on this. I watched your other video for beginners guide for the Synology NAS, but I am stuck at this final step. Edit: I just saw your video: "How to Backup MacOS to Synology NAS using Time Machine (easy)" That worked! Thanks.
Unless I am doing something wrong, for me the on demand client has unfortunately been unreliable where 6 files out of 10 are successfully uploaded and the rest are failed. I’ve moved back to uploading my files via the the browser, however I’d love to hear if there are others that have it running really well.
Great vid. Unable to get past the 6 digit code request on Drive Client. I use the required Secure sign on "Synology DSM" codes but they are not recognised??? Novice
It would; be great if the demo was in 'List view'. I'd be interested to know if the finder shows '0 Gb' for a file that has not yet been downloaded/Pinned-locally, or '25gb', the size it *will* be once its stored locally. I'm looking to move away from Dropbox, and the details make all the difference
Thanks for another great video! I too have long been awaiting this. While I've been working okay by working off the NAS by mounting my home and team folders on my Mac Mini. However, my spouse has a MacBook and this will be awesome for her as I've struggled a bit trying to explain how to mount her folders remotely, using VPN, etc. My question is " How should we set up backups now?". As we now wait for Active Backup for MacOS, I backup the local drive to NAS using Time Machine, then my NAS goes through it's 3-2-1 backup. I assume any synced files will be backed up (hopefully not the unsync'd ones!). While this is yet another level of backup, it is probably unnecessary and will likely bloat my NAS with files that are already well backed up. Is this clear? My NAS is backed up well and this backup includes my Time Machine backups. If I add Synced files to this, it might be overkill. Any thoughts?
The problem when you try to use it for editing workflow locally with Sync on-demand. MacOS will NOT ALLOW to access pinned cloud drive folder with physically downloaded assets. It will ask you to: "Copy the document to a local, SAN, or supported SMB location, then try again." Hopefully there is some work-around until Synology will figure it out, otherwise the only way is to make regular sync per project until project is completed / or stick to 10Gb direct editing from NAS.
So bummed because I'm still on Catalina and staying here for the long game 😭 Looks so awesome though! I'm definitely planning to jump on this when the M3 Pro Macs make their appearance. Thanks for the goldmine of knowledge, SpaceRex =)
I want to move off of iCloud - already have photos moved and using Synology Photos. What I want to move is all iCloud Drive folders ( documents, Keynotes, Numbers, Pages) and then be able to use them from the Mac mini m2, the iPads and iPhones, too. Does it matter what I name the Team Folder? How to move the documents? Great channel Spacerex! I saw a comment earlier that numbers files will not work... true?
Thanks for the content I have followed the steps, but after I enable team folder, it does not show up in synology drive on my mac or iPhone. I can access it through finder it is added to my locations. I really don't have a clue, is someone familiar with this?
Excellent tutorial! Is there a way to set up multiple backup tasks? - I would like to backup multiple folders from different drives to my recently purchased Synology and after creating one task for my Photos a folder on my PC, I can't see a button to create another task for my other important folders I want to backup.
I managed one sync with a folder on Dropbox but trying to add another sync for a folder on my Mac has me stumped. I thought I could simply add a sync task from the synology client but it’s telling me I already have a sync task underway. It’s really unnecessarily confusing, unlike say pCloud where I can simply right click a folder and have it sync.
Really helpful video, thanks. How does it work with the Apple Photos database? If you change just one photo, does it have to replicate the whole database?
hi i have been waiting to pull the trigger as i am not sure how reliable it is compared to Dropbox, esp it is years behind in development. i have lost faith with Sharepoint as it is buggy (upload of 3000 files hang midway) whereas upload to Onedrive works. Further Onedrive on mac osx now would delete files permanently instead of moving to Trash Bin - which is not the best implementation imo. Is this the case for Synology Drive in the way it handles "deletes"? Some large files ops stress stress: How does Synology Drive handle upload of large numerous folder (e.g 3000 files) in 1 one go? How does it perform if i click big folder (3000+ files) to download locally, and before it finishes, click to make that folder stay in cloud again?
So right now June 2023 the on demand drive feature for current Mac does not work. I was looking forward to loading my Mac up with video files to work on for an edit and all I can do is access the 1621 via smb. I was looking for to grabbing and files I needed on the road.
I’ve been using the Demand Sync for the last several weeks and it’s fantastic, however, the Synology name that I assigned to it doesn’t show up in the side bar Finder no matter what I do. I’m currently running MacOS 12 Monterey.
FYI: Synology Demand Sync does NOT support MacOS bundled files (like .numbers files). The result is non of your iWork files will sync and they have to excluded in the sync setup. So for us MacOS business users that use Apple applications like Numbers and Pages, Synology Demand Sync is not a workable solution. According to Synology support they may introduce support for this in the future, but no specific dates were given.
I've recently faced an issue on a macbook it was first time to connect a mac via smb I found mac apps like pages refuses to save or autosave any solution or configuration for that im not aware of?
On a Synology NAS are Volumes the same thing as hard drives in the NAS? If this is so, then why would my volumes show the following when I have 10TB drives in all 4 bays of the NAS? The Volumes show: Vol. 1 - 10TB; Vol. 2 - 10.36GB; Vol. 3 - 10.36GB; Vol. 4 - 10.36GB. I would expect Vols. 2-3 to show 10TB or something close to that capacity.
If you're already running Synology Drive you have to the existing sync and set it up again. Bit of a pain but I can see it be because Apple want to manage where the files are stored.
This is a Great video and helped me a lot but My question is. Will this work well for a Group of 5 Graphic designers all working on Hi-Res Images without running into problems. I am trying to help a Small Business that is trying to run their graphics department off a Synolgoy 1621+ and they are having nothing but trouble. What would the process be to hire you to help?
So I'm trying to set up a folder to sync in /Users/Shared so I can access it from both of my user acounts on the Mac, but that does not seem to work. Is it a Mac issue that we can't do anything about?
I have set up Synology Drive on my Mac but when I try and open a project saved on my NAS I keep getting the error "copy the document to a local, SAN, or supported SMB location, then try again." I have set up SMB before and can open projects normally from the folder I had previously set up but when I set up the new Synology Drive I get that error accessing the same projects. Side question I am hoping to be able to use this so that I can edit with Final Cut on my desktop or on my laptop. Can I have a copy saved locally on each system and the changes synced between them. Thank you again for the great video. Much appreciated.
@@SpaceRexWill darn! Thank you very much for the response. Right now I have the DS923+ with an SSD cache. Is there any advantage when editing on Final Cut and using the NAS to store the projects and data in upgrading from the base 4GBs of RAM to something more?
Since I'm dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to a NAS, going to search your video in hope of how to set up a DS920+ on a MAC only system. I bought this DS920+ in Aug 2021, and got so frustrated I just turned it off, and it's been off almost as long as I've owned it. I used to us a 4 bay RAID 5 enclose for years, and it just gave up suddenly and though the DS920+ would be my savior. Wrong, just frustration.
I’d like some advice: I have a DS 720+ and my brother’s ancient laptop with Synology Drive app (Win7). Synology Drive is configured to backup to DS720. It works fine…but today he was re-arranging his files and Synology Drive started uploading all those files again. Is there a way to avoid this if he only moves files between folders on his PC?. The main problem is the laptop has a very limited WiFi card @ 75Mbps.
how do I sign out of my Synology Drive account on Synology Drive Client app on Mac? The only way I found is to uninstall the whole app and then reinstall
Has any mac users out there had an issue with .numbers files not syncing? Every other file type is syncing, but my .numbers files are not. I have looked everywhere in the settings and I can't find any reason why the .numbers files aren't syncing.
Thanks for the video. We are die hard sharepoint document sync servers for advertising marketing. It's nice to sync options expanding especially since graphical files are HUGE. Nice to unsync files when not needed. But, I manage 35 sharepoint severs totally 22TB. Is it possible to set up multiple sync servers on a synology server?
They would not end up being different Synology Drive servers, but what you would do is create different shared folders for each of your sync needs, and assign user permissions to each one specifically.
Thank you for your review and install video. You commented, "if you have not installed Synology Drive, it will install all three...(referring to Synology Drive, Synology Drive Admin Console, and Synology Drive ShareSync). For those with Synology Drive installed and running is there another install sequence that will install the Admin Console and ShareSync components. I cannot find them when I search for them on package center? Thanks! P.S. I did see your reply to Patrick Derksen yesterday... looks like an either/or situation: SMB or Demand Sync?
So once you install drive you will see all three packages show up as long as you are logged in as an Administrator. So generally if you are local SMB will be better as you can stream files without ever having to fully download them. But if you are often remote then Drive is probably the better option
good afternoon. Help me please. I have DS220+, MacBook with Monterey, smb on Nas enabled. I often upload many photos 1500-2000 pieces per day. And the problem is the following, when I copy files to the NAS or to the NAS itself via SMB, before copying, it thinks for a very long time, writes preparation for copying or moving, hidden files are created at the beginning of each photo. And if I upload these files not individually, but in a folder, then copying or moving starts instantly. The speed of the copy itself is excellent, but the preparation for copying can take hours. Tried both via lan and via wifi the situation is similar. What is the problem, what can be done?
I need help. I have a remote editor friend who has access to my nas with video files. Synology drive with on demand sync. He doesn’t want to download the files onto his local computer. But instead just simply drag or copy the files off synology drive and onto his external SSD drive to work off of. How does he do this without downloading the files to the computer.
@@SpaceRexWill Thank you!! Got it to work.. for me remotely. However how do i tell my remote editor to access it? Does he need to download OpenVPN connect and use my openvpn profile?
@@SpaceRexWill not able to manage it to work... All files are synched except hidden dor files (.zshrc .vscode etc.)... Would you be so kind and try it on your computer?
Thanks for your video. Unfortunately this new feature doesn't solve everything... I work in Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. Both of these programs don't allow files to be stored on iCloud drive, and tada... same error if I want to store them on this Synology drive. Same for the very large Logic Pro Library. Would be great to have this on the Synology, since I use not all the samples all the time. Only situation this new Synology Drive client works is with normal files that are not packed in a library. So I keep working direct to the Synology with a NFS connection...
Good to know that MacOS has this lock. Everything else I have tested has worked fine. Just throwing it out there I have had a better experience using SMB over NFS for Final Cut Pro
I've been using Synology Drive Client/Server to maintain a continuous file-level backup of various MacOS User folders on a network. The problem I am having is that SDC is flagging changes in *every* file in /Users//Library, many of which are cache or operational files for running applications. So the client is going nuts pretty much 24-7 trying to update thousands of files all the time. In contrast, Time Machine specifically excludes many of these files from backups. Other than removing these one by one from the list of backup items in the SDC, is there a straightforward way to transfer standard exclusions from TM's exclusions to the Synology Drive Client, for example by copy and pasting the file paths from .exclusions.plist to a corresponding list in SDC?
I'll add that MacOS and other apps frequently write files to the /User/ folder that do not have normal permissions. In fact these files are sometimes only readable by root. This makes it harder to use permission-restricted backup approaches like Synology Drive Client without setting explicit exclusions.
Very good video and a great function. I am currently setting up at home and am having difficulties deciding between a Synology DS220+ (or maybe a used 920+ but with new Drives) and a self built TrueNAS System with a Intel J5040. I do have both machines on hand right now and I'm struggling to decide. My goal is to have a place for over 20K pictures and videos. 90% are videos. We are only using iPhones and Macs in our family. Is there a chance or similar function to this for TrueNAS Scale?
@@SpaceRexWill thanks for the reply. I have already packed the Intel Machine and have decided to go with Synology. Trying to figure out which one to use. Am pending between 420+ and 920+ now. Probably depends on which one I can get for a better deal.
After a few days with this I think I'm going back to the two-way sync for directories with a lot of files. When I delete files on one Mac it spits them back into the root directory for that setup. Also, I have to plan in advance when I need to pin a directory to my laptop, if I'm heading offsite.
From reading on some next cloud forms that were trying to do the same on demand sync it sounds like linux and virtual file systems is a bit tough, and I don't think there is a huge driving force to implement them so it could be a while. This is all second hand me guess though so take it with a grain of salt
Wow, a really great feature and thanks for all the valuable videos! Does Synology Drive and this feature work reliably on a server with 20+TB of storage (600'000+ Files)? Can we mix Synology Drive access and direct SMB access together safely? Does anyone have any experience with this?
They recommend having sync tasks under 500k files. So you are on the edge where it may make more since to have an active and an archive folder to limit the number of files that have to sync to your computer. As for using drive and SMB together you absolutely can! They are bringing in file locking in 7.2 cross smb and drive. For now if you and another person both edited a file at the same time it would rename the second saved version as a “conflict” so you would manually have to merge in your changes
I was disappointed to try Synology Drive for the first time and discover that the MacOS client does not allow you to edit sync rules after initial creation without deleting and adding the sync. I will change what I'm syncing if I'm going to be travelling as opposed to what I might sync for day to day activity and I realise it doesn't use space to have on-demand files enabled but I've found with other cloud services that performance is severely impacted when you have lots of files (even stub files). As an example, I would normally have 2023 photos from my Media share synced for day to day but going away, I might want to edit some work from last year and want to add 2022 photos in which should be as simple as editing the sync rules and choosing the additional folder. Does anyone have a workaround to this? I've discovered as long as I don't remove all sync tasks for the NAS it will retain the credentials but going through the process of removing and adding is a lot of extra work compared to just editing the folders synced.
NIce video SpaceRex! Just like Rob Knopper I wonder how (and if) to do this if you’re already using Synology drive. If you haven’t got space issues and Apart from having a direct access in the side bar, what’s the added benefit? And more importantly, I don’t think you can edit the current drive sync tasks. What would be the strategy here??
So if you are already using synology drive then you are setup with the standard sync where everything in drive is always on your local machine. If you have enough space on your hard drive then more likely then not this is going to be your preferred method. The only real advantage is if you want access to a repository of space that is larger then your hard drive. As for changing you are correct. The only way to change from regular to on demand (or vice versa) is to remove the task and re add it
Hey Will. Basic question: if a user is ONLY using drive client on LAN, or over VPN, i.e with local IP-address for loging into the client, could http be used (not httpS). Example: When I sign in on Drive (but also other applications running on the nas) with https I constantly get interrupted ”certificate is not trusted”, and you have to re-log into the application for normal operation to resume. It is quite annoying and I frankly do not know how to fix the certificate issue. Could you make a video on it maybe?
Yes! So if you are not concerned about someone packet snooping (on a LAN / VPN) you can without worry. Option B you can get a 10 year cert and load it up. Then just trust it
I’ve been a Synology user for years but just had to replace a bricked 1515+ and I’ve been loving your content and really appreciate your videos to bring me up to speed with all the recent changes. I’m trying to take advantage of everything the new 1522+ can do and your content is certainly helping me do that. I just got Photos up and running and noticed when I share external links to videos, the external users can’t hear the audio. The video plays fine, but no audio. When I play it locally it works fine. Any ideas on what the issue might be? Thanks so much again for all the great Synology focused content.
Thank you for the video…question…Does Synology Sync have the ability to filter or ignore files within a folder? (Sort of like I can do with a .gitignore file). We are currently using Dropbox and/or OneDrive to sync project files across machines. What my team would like is the ability to exclude certain embedded folders (like node_modules - which can contain 100k very small files that are needed to compile code but really should not by synced to a file server/cloud folder). Neither Dropbox or Onedrive supports an “ignore” or filter (DropBox has claimed to be working one for 5+ years so I doubt it is ever coming). If Synology Drive could provide this, then I would not have a problem investing in a Synology NAS for the team - especially if versioning did not take up too much resources.
@@SpaceRexWill Thank you for the reply! All of our laptops and desktops are macs so I will keep an eye out for a solutions that works for us (we still have GitHub to version code - but we really would like a way to sync and version development projects between git branch pushes that could exclude folders like node_modules.). Thanks again!
Is this really ready for primetime? I've been reading some horror stories about this. I really want to put this into effect but don't want to run into crippling issues.
@@SpaceRexWill I replied to this but I don't see my post. Probably because I had links. Well I let the software marinate in the wild for a few and I've been extremely busy with life :( but I finally set this up. Seems to be what I've been looking for. I have a potential client that I may use this for also. Wife will be going to the city this week and that'll be a good test of this. Oh and btw you put out great videos guy. Good work.
Thanks for sharing. I implemented this immediately and it’s still synchronising. This is such a great help and will make my workflow so much easier.
3:58 versioning has saved my bacon at least twice. Both times I was working on a specific app and the data got corrupted while I was working on it (the app saves the file with each change). I do daily backups and hourly snapshots, so I wouldn’t have lost everything. But having versions let me start from where the problem occurred and I didn’t lose the work I did in the previous hour.
Great video as always! If i make a video request? Their is litterly not a single video on youtube that shows how to expose your NAS or Synology Drive with a domain name. Although i know how to, others might not! This would be a nice addition to your series! Anyway keep up the good work, we all appreciate you taking your time to make these.
Isn't that just under the external access tab i the control panel for dyndns? The dynamic dns provider should allow you to use whatever name you have registered as the domain name.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade No, you can set every specific service that synology offers under a different domain name and port. However that hasn't anything to do with i knowing how it works and others not haha
LEGEND! Thank you for that tutorial! Was looking for a solution when I'm overseas. It's great. Thank you.
I gave up on it years ago. Glad it works now! I look forward to replacing iCloud to a large degree
Love this guys diction and cadence.
It ate up my mac disk storage, and said syncronization disabled due to lack of disk storage ( On Mac ). Is there a way to clear disk storage happened coz of this miss?
This is a terrific feature. I’ve been using iCloud Sync for years, and it’s been really reliable…but my Synology units have a lot more space. And are under my control.
yeah its been working really well!
Thanks for you in-depth review on this, seems like a fantastic new feature for macOS. Curious about how well the service performs with a small group of people, maybe 10, working on different files on the same share. What about multiple people working on files within the same folder? Have you run into any weird permissions issues or glitches with multiple users? Thanks!
Nice video as always! One downside over SMB seems to be the search function, looks only into filenames but not on the contents
Started using this and it’s quite useful. Thanks for your videos.
For a home user/photographer, should we have both synology drive and an SMB set up? If so, what's the protocol for what goes on drive vs SMB?
Amazing tutorial with great use case examples.
Thank you so much. man!
How to iCloud Image Sync to Synology NAS - Please make a video for.Thanks
Will, another great video. Extremely well done !!!
Active Backup for Business now works with MacOS. I know you've been waiting for that one for a long time :P
That tutorial is coming up as soon as I get a HDMI recorder so I can show all the steps lol
Is this a joke?
It’s good but also terrible. A 2015 app released in 2022-23. I’ve tested it and it’s so close but so far too. Not all Synology’s fault, though, as they have to use legacy KEXTs to do what they need to.
@@PrinceLX no more kexts for me, to many kennel panics and data loss
Thanks Will for yet another awesome tutorial 👍🏼
I’m definitely going to ask to hire you in the near future to help check the setup of my NAS in the studio.
See ya!
Very helpful..you are the Synology King!
I found your vídeos as great help setting up my synology ! Although I synced a couple of folders in external samsung ssd T5 hd without enabling on demand sync
Just got this setup and it works great! thanks for these videos. I hope Sinology at least gives you free stuff if not flat out pays you for these!
I installed this after watching your video. Thanks alot 👍🏾 But what is the difference between having this new way of accessing files and using the network feature already within the mac Finder app? Need a reason to disconnect.
So the primary reason you want to do this is if you work on files and need access to the NAS outside of the local network that you work on. Otherwise the sidebar (which is an SMB connection) likely is better for you
If I am already using Synology Drive on my Mac with everything saved locally, do I have to disconnect that and delete the existing local files first and then create a new sync task? Or is there a way I can adjust the setting from the old way to the On-Demand way? Thank you!
Excellent question. Exactly the same issue here
On MacOS you have to remove the task and recreate it to go from regular to on demand
@@SpaceRexWill So after I delete the old task, and start the new task, there will be all the data from the old task just sitting on my computer. Can I safely delete that data?
Once you delete the task you can safely delete the data from your computer as they will no longer be linked
Is this how to have Time Machine see my NAS? I have a shared folder created, and I see it on my computer under Network, but the time machine will not recognize it as an option for backups. I'm not very up on this. I watched your other video for beginners guide for the Synology NAS, but I am stuck at this final step. Edit: I just saw your video: "How to Backup MacOS to Synology NAS using Time Machine (easy)" That worked! Thanks.
Unless I am doing something wrong, for me the on demand client has unfortunately been unreliable where 6 files out of 10 are successfully uploaded and the rest are failed.
I’ve moved back to uploading my files via the the browser, however I’d love to hear if there are others that have it running really well.
Great vid. Unable to get past the 6 digit code request on Drive Client. I use the required Secure sign on "Synology DSM" codes but they are not recognised??? Novice
It would; be great if the demo was in 'List view'. I'd be interested to know if the finder shows '0 Gb' for a file that has not yet been downloaded/Pinned-locally, or '25gb', the size it *will* be once its stored locally. I'm looking to move away from Dropbox, and the details make all the difference
Thanks for another great video! I too have long been awaiting this. While I've been working okay by working off the NAS by mounting my home and team folders on my Mac Mini. However, my spouse has a MacBook and this will be awesome for her as I've struggled a bit trying to explain how to mount her folders remotely, using VPN, etc.
My question is " How should we set up backups now?". As we now wait for Active Backup for MacOS, I backup the local drive to NAS using Time Machine, then my NAS goes through it's 3-2-1 backup. I assume any synced files will be backed up (hopefully not the unsync'd ones!). While this is yet another level of backup, it is probably unnecessary and will likely bloat my NAS with files that are already well backed up. Is this clear? My NAS is backed up well and this backup includes my Time Machine backups. If I add Synced files to this, it might be overkill. Any thoughts?
The problem when you try to use it for editing workflow locally with Sync on-demand. MacOS will NOT ALLOW to access pinned cloud drive folder with physically downloaded assets.
It will ask you to: "Copy the document to a local, SAN, or supported SMB location, then try again."
Hopefully there is some work-around until Synology will figure it out, otherwise the only way is to make regular sync per project until project is completed / or stick to 10Gb direct editing from NAS.
what's the advantage of this vs mounting a NAS drive in finder via smb?
This works fast outside of your local network
You can also pin files so that you always have a local copy you can access when you are offline (and changes will get synced when you are back online)
So bummed because I'm still on Catalina and staying here for the long game 😭 Looks so awesome though! I'm definitely planning to jump on this when the M3 Pro Macs make their appearance.
Thanks for the goldmine of knowledge, SpaceRex =)
thanks man
This is lovely info, is there a way if my drive is already set up that I can just enable this on demand sync to my drive?
Do you ever think we will be able use on demand sync with an external drive in the future?
I want to move off of iCloud - already have photos moved and using Synology Photos. What I want to move is all iCloud Drive folders ( documents, Keynotes, Numbers, Pages) and then be able to use them from the Mac mini m2, the iPads and iPhones, too. Does it matter what I name the Team Folder? How to move the documents? Great channel Spacerex! I saw a comment earlier that numbers files will not work... true?
Thanks for the content I have followed the steps, but after I enable team folder, it does not show up in synology drive on my mac or iPhone. I can access it through finder it is added to my locations. I really don't have a clue, is someone familiar with this?
What's the speed? Is it very slow when using the quick connect?
Excellent tutorial! Is there a way to set up multiple backup tasks? - I would like to backup multiple folders from different drives to my recently purchased Synology and after creating one task for my Photos a folder on my PC, I can't see a button to create another task for my other important folders I want to backup.
I managed one sync with a folder on Dropbox but trying to add another sync for a folder on my Mac has me stumped. I thought I could simply add a sync task from the synology client but it’s telling me I already have a sync task underway. It’s really unnecessarily confusing, unlike say pCloud where I can simply right click a folder and have it sync.
Please, please, please do that workflow tutorial
Really helpful video, thanks. How does it work with the Apple Photos database? If you change just one photo, does it have to replicate the whole database?
Not properly working on my two Macs - e.g. JPGs created by Capture One are not synched 😞
hi i have been waiting to pull the trigger as i am not sure how reliable it is compared to Dropbox, esp it is years behind in development.
i have lost faith with Sharepoint as it is buggy (upload of 3000 files hang midway) whereas upload to Onedrive works. Further Onedrive on mac osx now would delete files permanently instead of moving to Trash Bin - which is not the best implementation imo. Is this the case for Synology Drive in the way it handles "deletes"?
Some large files ops stress stress:
How does Synology Drive handle upload of large numerous folder (e.g 3000 files) in 1 one go?
How does it perform if i click big folder (3000+ files) to download locally, and before it finishes, click to make that folder stay in cloud again?
So right now June 2023 the on demand drive feature for current Mac does not work.
I was looking forward to loading my Mac up with video files to work on for an edit and all I can do is access the 1621 via smb. I was looking for to grabbing and files I needed on the road.
I’ve been using the Demand Sync for the last several weeks and it’s fantastic, however, the Synology name that I assigned to it doesn’t show up in the side bar Finder no matter what I do. I’m currently running MacOS 12 Monterey.
I have found that that happens when you only have a single folder! once you have a second folder it uses the names. I thought that was very strange
FYI: Synology Demand Sync does NOT support MacOS bundled files (like .numbers files). The result is non of your iWork files will sync and they have to excluded in the sync setup. So for us MacOS business users that use Apple applications like Numbers and Pages, Synology Demand Sync is not a workable solution. According to Synology support they may introduce support for this in the future, but no specific dates were given.
I've recently faced an issue on a macbook it was first time to connect a mac via smb I found mac apps like pages refuses to save or autosave any solution or configuration for that im not aware of?
On a Synology NAS are Volumes the same thing as hard drives in the NAS? If this is so, then why would my volumes show the following when I have 10TB drives in all 4 bays of the NAS? The Volumes show: Vol. 1 - 10TB; Vol. 2 - 10.36GB; Vol. 3 - 10.36GB; Vol. 4 - 10.36GB. I would expect Vols. 2-3 to show 10TB or something close to that capacity.
Can I also use this new on-demand sync to perform my backup and archiving to my synology? It looks so much easier to perform
If you're already running Synology Drive you have to the existing sync and set it up again. Bit of a pain but I can see it be because Apple want to manage where the files are stored.
Looks like OneDrive and Google drive on Mac. Very nice. Question: what's the penalty when using incremental storage?
My friend, why I do not have a Shared Folder Sync in my control p[anel? :(
Finally. Took them long enough.
love to see workflow
Planning on having a few videos for this!
thanks man! just fyi the amazon first NAS link is sold out/unavailable is there another one you could point me to?
Thanks for the heads up - just updated the description!
This is a Great video and helped me a lot but My question is. Will this work well for a Group of 5 Graphic designers all working on Hi-Res Images without running into problems. I am trying to help a Small Business that is trying to run their graphics department off a Synolgoy 1621+ and they are having nothing but trouble. What would the process be to hire you to help?
So I'm trying to set up a folder to sync in /Users/Shared so I can access it from both of my user acounts on the Mac, but that does not seem to work. Is it a Mac issue that we can't do anything about?
You should do a video on Tailscale for Synology.
when I do on-demand sync? (to the previous question)
I have set up Synology Drive on my Mac but when I try and open a project saved on my NAS I keep getting the error "copy the document to a local, SAN, or supported SMB location, then try again."
I have set up SMB before and can open projects normally from the folder I had previously set up but when I set up the new Synology Drive I get that error accessing the same projects.
Side question I am hoping to be able to use this so that I can edit with Final Cut on my desktop or on my laptop. Can I have a copy saved locally on each system and the changes synced between them.
Thank you again for the great video. Much appreciated.
so this is something i found out after the fact. Final Cut Pro [or any of the other pro mac apps] does not support storing data on a cloud drive
@@SpaceRexWill darn! Thank you very much for the response.
Right now I have the DS923+ with an SSD cache. Is there any advantage when editing on Final Cut and using the NAS to store the projects and data in upgrading from the base 4GBs of RAM to something more?
I downloaded the Synology Drive Client, but my Mac refuses to run the installer. So, what do I do now..?
Since I'm dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to a NAS, going to search your video in hope of how to set up a DS920+ on a MAC only system.
I bought this DS920+ in Aug 2021, and got so frustrated I just turned it off, and it's been off almost as long as I've owned it.
I used to us a 4 bay RAID 5 enclose for years, and it just gave up suddenly and though the DS920+ would be my savior. Wrong, just frustration.
I’d like some advice: I have a DS 720+ and my brother’s ancient laptop with Synology Drive app (Win7). Synology Drive is configured to backup to DS720. It works fine…but today he was re-arranging his files and Synology Drive started uploading all those files again. Is there a way to avoid this if he only moves files between folders on his PC?. The main problem is the laptop has a very limited WiFi card @ 75Mbps.
how do I sign out of my Synology Drive account on Synology Drive Client app on Mac? The only way I found is to uninstall the whole app and then reinstall
You can just remove the synced folders in drive and they will remove
How can I import to Lightroom from Synology Drive?
Has any mac users out there had an issue with .numbers files not syncing? Every other file type is syncing, but my .numbers files are not. I have looked everywhere in the settings and I can't find any reason why the .numbers files aren't syncing.
Thanks for the video. We are die hard sharepoint document sync servers for advertising marketing. It's nice to sync options expanding especially since graphical files are HUGE.
Nice to unsync files when not needed.
But, I manage 35 sharepoint severs totally 22TB. Is it possible to set up multiple sync servers on a synology server?
They would not end up being different Synology Drive servers, but what you would do is create different shared folders for each of your sync needs, and assign user permissions to each one specifically.
Thank you for your review and install video. You commented, "if you have not installed Synology Drive, it will install all three...(referring to Synology Drive, Synology Drive Admin Console, and Synology Drive ShareSync). For those with Synology Drive installed and running is there another install sequence that will install the Admin Console and ShareSync components. I cannot find them when I search for them on package center? Thanks!
P.S. I did see your reply to Patrick Derksen yesterday... looks like an either/or situation: SMB or Demand Sync?
So once you install drive you will see all three packages show up as long as you are logged in as an Administrator.
So generally if you are local SMB will be better as you can stream files without ever having to fully download them. But if you are often remote then Drive is probably the better option
@@SpaceRexWill Thank you again!
Nice!
Possible tosync remotely if and at home or elsewhere
good afternoon. Help me please. I have DS220+, MacBook with Monterey, smb on Nas enabled. I often upload many photos 1500-2000 pieces per day. And the problem is the following, when I copy files to the NAS or to the NAS itself via SMB, before copying, it thinks for a very long time, writes preparation for copying or moving, hidden files are created at the beginning of each photo. And if I upload these files not individually, but in a folder, then copying or moving starts instantly. The speed of the copy itself is excellent, but the preparation for copying can take hours. Tried both via lan and via wifi the situation is similar. What is the problem, what can be done?
This is an issue with SMB where there really is no fix. Probably the easiest thing is to just copy folders
@@SpaceRexWill Thank you. I understand correctly that this problem will be on both windows and mac os ?
I need help. I have a remote editor friend who has access to my nas with video files. Synology drive with on demand sync.
He doesn’t want to download the files onto his local computer. But instead just simply drag or copy the files off synology drive and onto his external SSD drive to work off of.
How does he do this without downloading the files to the computer.
In that case you do not want to use Synology drive. Checkout my complete remote access guide for how to use openvpn / tailscale for this!
@@SpaceRexWill Thank you!! Got it to work.. for me remotely. However how do i tell my remote editor to access it? Does he need to download OpenVPN connect and use my openvpn profile?
Hi there, great review! Do you also have issues with syncing hidden (dot) files? For example .vscode and others are not synced :/ ... Thanks.
They should sync without issue with the on demand sync as MacOS requires 100% of files to sync is the drive folder. Note: I have not tested this
@@SpaceRexWill not able to manage it to work... All files are synched except hidden dor files (.zshrc .vscode etc.)... Would you be so kind and try it on your computer?
Is there a way to change the local folder on a Mac where SynologyDrive syncs?
For on demand sync you cannot
How does one upload the new drive client, e.g., version 7.1.1?
Can you work with folders in the same way - so if you choose download do all the contained files also download?
Yes you can!
How does the search indexing in finder work Vs universal search?
Thanks for your video. Unfortunately this new feature doesn't solve everything... I work in Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. Both of these programs don't allow files to be stored on iCloud drive, and tada... same error if I want to store them on this Synology drive. Same for the very large Logic Pro Library. Would be great to have this on the Synology, since I use not all the samples all the time. Only situation this new Synology Drive client works is with normal files that are not packed in a library. So I keep working direct to the Synology with a NFS connection...
Good to know that MacOS has this lock. Everything else I have tested has worked fine.
Just throwing it out there I have had a better experience using SMB over NFS for Final Cut Pro
I've been using Synology Drive Client/Server to maintain a continuous file-level backup of various MacOS User folders on a network. The problem I am having is that SDC is flagging changes in *every* file in /Users//Library, many of which are cache or operational files for running applications. So the client is going nuts pretty much 24-7 trying to update thousands of files all the time. In contrast, Time Machine specifically excludes many of these files from backups. Other than removing these one by one from the list of backup items in the SDC, is there a straightforward way to transfer standard exclusions from TM's exclusions to the Synology Drive Client, for example by copy and pasting the file paths from .exclusions.plist to a corresponding list in SDC?
I'll add that MacOS and other apps frequently write files to the /User/ folder that do not have normal permissions. In fact these files are sometimes only readable by root. This makes it harder to use permission-restricted backup approaches like Synology Drive Client without setting explicit exclusions.
Very good video and a great function. I am currently setting up at home and am having difficulties deciding between a Synology DS220+ (or maybe a used 920+ but with new Drives) and a self built TrueNAS System with a Intel J5040. I do have both machines on hand right now and I'm struggling to decide. My goal is to have a place for over 20K pictures and videos. 90% are videos. We are only using iPhones and Macs in our family. Is there a chance or similar function to this for TrueNAS Scale?
Closest thing probably is synology drive
@@SpaceRexWill thanks for the reply. I have already packed the Intel Machine and have decided to go with Synology.
Trying to figure out which one to use. Am pending between 420+ and 920+ now. Probably depends on which one I can get for a better deal.
Very cool, Is there anything similar to synology drive for Truenas?
Closest thing is resilo sync. It will sync to your computer, but it will not do the 'on demand sync' that this has
Perfect except for not being able to sync hidden dot files or folders, like what you would find in web development.
Yeah, then the further problem with this is that they are using the apple protocol for this, so there is nothing they can do to change it
After a few days with this I think I'm going back to the two-way sync for directories with a lot of files. When I delete files on one Mac it spits them back into the root directory for that setup. Also, I have to plan in advance when I need to pin a directory to my laptop, if I'm heading offsite.
love the videos but the wire hanging from the TV is making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Appreciate all the videos though!
Any idea when/if they'll implement this for Nautilus/Dolphin/Linux file managers?
From reading on some next cloud forms that were trying to do the same on demand sync it sounds like linux and virtual file systems is a bit tough, and I don't think there is a huge driving force to implement them so it could be a while. This is all second hand me guess though so take it with a grain of salt
Wow, a really great feature and thanks for all the valuable videos!
Does Synology Drive and this feature work reliably on a server with 20+TB of storage (600'000+ Files)? Can we mix Synology Drive access and direct SMB access together safely? Does anyone have any experience with this?
They recommend having sync tasks under 500k files. So you are on the edge where it may make more since to have an active and an archive folder to limit the number of files that have to sync to your computer.
As for using drive and SMB together you absolutely can! They are bringing in file locking in 7.2 cross smb and drive. For now if you and another person both edited a file at the same time it would rename the second saved version as a “conflict” so you would manually have to merge in your changes
@@SpaceRexWill Perfect, thank you for your answer.
I was disappointed to try Synology Drive for the first time and discover that the MacOS client does not allow you to edit sync rules after initial creation without deleting and adding the sync. I will change what I'm syncing if I'm going to be travelling as opposed to what I might sync for day to day activity and I realise it doesn't use space to have on-demand files enabled but I've found with other cloud services that performance is severely impacted when you have lots of files (even stub files). As an example, I would normally have 2023 photos from my Media share synced for day to day but going away, I might want to edit some work from last year and want to add 2022 photos in which should be as simple as editing the sync rules and choosing the additional folder. Does anyone have a workaround to this? I've discovered as long as I don't remove all sync tasks for the NAS it will retain the credentials but going through the process of removing and adding is a lot of extra work compared to just editing the folders synced.
Can I put my Lightroom Catalog in Synology Drive and add pictures, make edits remotely offsite.
Yes you can!
@@SpaceRexWill Any plans for a how to video?
Made one here: ruclips.net/video/P80Fpe1FBrw/видео.html
Working on getting the full workflow together and then making a bunch of them!
NIce video SpaceRex! Just like Rob Knopper I wonder how (and if) to do this if you’re already using Synology drive. If you haven’t got space issues and Apart from having a direct access in the side bar, what’s the added benefit? And more importantly, I don’t think you can edit the current drive sync tasks. What would be the strategy here??
So if you are already using synology drive then you are setup with the standard sync where everything in drive is always on your local machine.
If you have enough space on your hard drive then more likely then not this is going to be your preferred method. The only real advantage is if you want access to a repository of space that is larger then your hard drive.
As for changing you are correct. The only way to change from regular to on demand (or vice versa) is to remove the task and re add it
Hey Will. Basic question: if a user is ONLY using drive client on LAN, or over VPN, i.e with local IP-address for loging into the client, could http be used (not httpS). Example: When I sign in on Drive (but also other applications running on the nas) with https I constantly get interrupted ”certificate is not trusted”, and you have to re-log into the application for normal operation to resume. It is quite annoying and I frankly do not know how to fix the certificate issue. Could you make a video on it maybe?
Yes! So if you are not concerned about someone packet snooping (on a LAN / VPN) you can without worry.
Option B you can get a 10 year cert and load it up. Then just trust it
@@SpaceRexWill thanks Will. Quick tip on where to find that 10yr cert? 😀 /from 🇸🇪
somehow, some users are unable to download the synology drive admin in Packages.
Thats super weird! I have seen it in comments but did not think it was possible lol
I’ve been a Synology user for years but just had to replace a bricked 1515+ and I’ve been loving your content and really appreciate your videos to bring me up to speed with all the recent changes. I’m trying to take advantage of everything the new 1522+ can do and your content is certainly helping me do that. I just got Photos up and running and noticed when I share external links to videos, the external users can’t hear the audio. The video plays fine, but no audio. When I play it locally it works fine. Any ideas on what the issue might be? Thanks so much again for all the great Synology focused content.
Thank you for the video…question…Does Synology Sync have the ability to filter or ignore files within a folder? (Sort of like I can do with a .gitignore file). We are currently using Dropbox and/or OneDrive to sync project files across machines. What my team would like is the ability to exclude certain embedded folders (like node_modules - which can contain 100k very small files that are needed to compile code but really should not by synced to a file server/cloud folder). Neither Dropbox or Onedrive supports an “ignore” or filter (DropBox has claimed to be working one for 5+ years so I doubt it is ever coming). If Synology Drive could provide this, then I would not have a problem investing in a Synology NAS for the team - especially if versioning did not take up too much resources.
You are able to do exactly what you are looking for with Synology Drive, but not using the macOS on demand sync as apple does not allow it.
@@SpaceRexWill Thank you for the reply! All of our laptops and desktops are macs so I will keep an eye out for a solutions that works for us (we still have GitHub to version code - but we really would like a way to sync and version development projects between git branch pushes that could exclude folders like node_modules.). Thanks again!
Is this really ready for primetime? I've been reading some horror stories about this. I really want to put this into effect but don't want to run into crippling issues.
What issues have you seen with this? I have found it to actually work really well
@@SpaceRexWill I replied to this but I don't see my post. Probably because I had links. Well I let the software marinate in the wild for a few and I've been extremely busy with life :( but I finally set this up. Seems to be what I've been looking for. I have a potential client that I may use this for also.
Wife will be going to the city this week and that'll be a good test of this.
Oh and btw you put out great videos guy. Good work.
LOL at the PS
Would it be possible for you to share? I am unable to understand. Thank you.
@@NewCastleIndiana listen to what he says at 14:34 min mark
Macs have literally everything that makes computing easier. Windows absolutely sucks.