Simple Synology Settings EVERYONE should be using (Basics)

[@davidshafer7271]

I just got my DS1522+ 2 weeks ago. After the first week of utter despair and frustration, thinking I might as well write it off as a very expensive shotgun target. I found your wonderfully mastered instructional videos...I'm on course now, and am a patron of your art, Thank you!

[@horus6915]

Finally, someone also says that changing password policy isn't effective at all.

[@robburt7747]

Appreciate that you not only demonstrated the changes but explained WHY as well as instances we might not configure a particular setting

[@DeliberateGeek]

Nicely done video. I've been in IT, both on the hardware and software side for 35 years. I had most of this stuff nailed, but you never know when you missed something. In this case, the big one for me was snapshots. Missed it completely. I use Synology exclusively for home use, and help friends with their setups. I have my own data backed-up lots of ways, so I wasn't overly concerned, but having the snapshots is useful for quick recovery. I'd love to chat sometime and compare notes on backups.

[@Leopold3131]

This was a nice video. Nothing earth shattering. Just good solid suggestions. I found myself logging into each of my three NAS and checking each one for each suggestion. Found a couple items that needed updating. Nice job.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Hey thanks! Exactly what I was going for!

[@Axoamedia]

You completely hit the spot of things I needed to know right now. And you explained them so well. Thank you so much!

[@ilariomasala7578]

Just bought Synology recently, I never used one before, watched all your tutorials, they are great and professional, could setup everything thanks to You. Thanks a lot, greatings from ITALY

[@0DeadSoul0]

Another great video! Your channel was one of my primary sources for information when I was shopping for and comparing different NAS solutions. Love your easy to tutorials and have followed them since day one.

[@Secretweapondoze]

I just got the 1522+ and without Spacerex, I would have returned it. Dude you are 5 Stars!

[@TruthAndJustice463]

Thank you so much for the detailed video. I've had a Synology DS1019+ with a DX517 for over a year and am still learning thanks to videos like these. Well Done!

[@scd6969]

Will, you saved me a ton of work trying to figure all this NAS stuff out. Your channel is invaluable. Thank you and keep up the good work! Hope your channel becomes the first and last stop for all things NAS.

[@SpaceRexWill]

thanks man! Thats my goal too!

[@denver_video]

Thank you for this! Synology arrives tomorrow, excited to have some good storage game again. Love all your videos, very helpful to me.

[@waynethoms2801]

I just setup my Synology DS1821+ which is in addition to my DS419slim. So, I am not new to NAS, but still learning more and more. I liked the first video and will be checking out additional videos.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Glad you liked it!

[@davidsargentcoffee]

Great video! I always dread going into DSM to toy around with settings like I have any idea what I'm doing. This put a couple things into clear perspective for me. Thanks!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Glad I could help!

[@ethanfoulkes6853]

Totally brilliant instruction. Made setting up my new NAS so much easier.Thank you

[@maxbarko8717]

You are such a great help! Thank you! And I totally agree with password expiration. Was proven useless a long time ago. Thank you for emphasizing it!

[@ronbandes5630]

Another excellent video. I have a DS1520+ at home and a DS920+ at my son's house. They each provide backup capability for the desktop systems in their respective households, and they back each other up with Hyper Backup. I also use Synology Photos, and will be setting up Synology Calendar for shared calendars without Google. I had already configured most of the things that you suggest, including Quick SMART disk tests, but I had missed Extended SMART disk tests. I also learned to setup a scheduled task to empty recycle bins. I have two small corrections for your users. At 14:32 you say that SONOS uses NTLMv1 authentication. I think you mean that SONOS S1 software uses SMBv1 (I've read that SONOS S2 uses SMBv2), so I don't think anyone needs to enable NTLMv1 on their NAS. The second area appears at 18:31, where you say that people with unstable power from the grid might not want to enable Restart authomatically when power supply issue is fixed. This is a non-issue if you have your NAS plugged into a UPS, and everyone should have a UPS. If you have power fluctuations (it doesn't even need to be a total power failure), you could lose the integrity of your volumes and RAID won't help you. I have a 1500VA UPS powering my NAS, Ethernet switch, Verizon FiOS box, and my router. The NAS is also connected to the UPS via USB so that the UPS can command the NAS to shutdown when the UPS batteries get low. This setup gives me about 90 minutes on battery power, and keeps the NAS running and online to the Internet so it can possibly finish a Hyper Backup task to the remote NAS and then shutdown gracefully. The router's AC adapter is plugged into the UPS, and a low-power extension cord (www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DST8ZCY/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) allows my router to be upstairs. The low-power extension cord is easier to install than 120VAC, it is safer, and won't cause interference in nearby Ethernet cables (since it is DC). BTW, 1500VA is overkill since you really only need to power your NAS long enough for it to shutdown gracefully.

[@cyberwasp461]

Great video. I've been following you for quite some time and have all of the options set that you covered. It's good though to go back over it again. I'm on my 3rd DS920+, the other two failed due to faulty backplanes and your tutorials have saved me.

[@SpaceRexWill]

I’m glad!

[@pkennethv]

How long did each of your DS920+ last before failing? As a fellow DS920+ (working fine after 1 year), this is concerning

[@cyberwasp461]

@@pkennethv the first one was a week and the second roughly a month.

[@prowler1567]

Thanks for the info on the minimums. I check back here frequently for information and how to. Still learning and you are a go to for information.

[@maxbarko8717]

18:49 I have my Synology power supply backed up with a UPS which I generally would recommend. There are UPS (uninterrupted power supply) that can communicate with the NAS via USB and the NAS can shut off if the battery runs low.

[@derrickspencer5615]

Lovee your athenticity and passion for this whole industry/subject!

[@FreedomToRoam86]

Awesome vid. Wish I had seen it before my last drive upgrade, LOL. Found out then that the biggest hog to my drives was the migration files from the prior upgrade.

[@ballislife9989]

Thank you for the detailed suggestions, very helpful.

[@JohnDoe-ls2zu]

Thanks! I was already doing everything in your video except Active Insight, which I just setup. I have two separate full backups of all files in the air gap (one copy on-site, one copy off-site). I've had a complete system failure and data volume corruption due to a crash during a "change RAID type" operation. Had to get an entire new Synology replacement though maintenance, migrate the main volume, re-initialize the data volume and recover everything from backup. BTW, "Change RAID type" is a very risky operation, as Synology doesn't have any checkpoint/restart or recovery ability. You're almost better off double-checking your backups, then re-initialize and recover from backup instead of doing "change RAID type".

[@gregkeeyako]

Awesome! You always give the greatest tips. Thanks!

[@RandallNewman]

Your videos are incredibly helpful thanks

[@stefanlindstrom7212]

Very usefull information, thanks a lot ! The only thing I did not catch total is the snapshot replication, how it is done and how to setup it for for the averaged user...

[@SpaceRexWill]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/hl6coKariMl6fas all of it here!

[@albertwilliams3748]

Awesome job with a bunch of great information! You Rock!!! Thanks a million!!!

[@jcchangshik3701]

Hello! Love your videos. Happy New Year! I am wondering if you have a video on updating from an old NAS (DS220J) to a new NAS (DS224+) Thank you!

[@johnplanetz]

Very helpful video. Thank you!

[@Svksams]

Your tutorials are awesome. Thank you!

[@RobHoffman83]

A little trick I've learned with email notification, learn the email address of your cell phone. Use that as a secondary email for notifications and it will text you without having to use a text service.

[@plastic_hand]

thank you fort this video. helped me a lot configurating my new system

[@SpaceRexWill]

Glad it helped!

[@MikeFox1]

Excellent video, Will - thanks so much!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Glad you liked it!

[@CLUAlNMEALA]

Thanks very informative, have nearly all the points covered except Snapshots.

[@chriscdn]

Thank you! Your videos are greatly appreciated!

[@geofreypejsa54]

Superb video...thanks for sharing your expertise!!!

[@ctyl5686]

Thank you, some great suggestions that I had not thought of.

[@moow950]

Thanx for your expert advice!

[@chit-chat906]

Great video my friend I do appreciate the hard work. One thing you could of mentioned is the use of MFA, Microsoft authentication app or google authentication app. Cheers.

[@canonwhale]

Love your videos, Ben! Been following you since early days (2013/14?) on Instagram and you’ve only got better and better! Learnt a lot from you about all things photography, thank you!

[@frankschaedlich9106]

Very helpful video. One thing though. Disabling SMB1, in and of itself, will make SONOS unable to use a Synology NAS for your music library! Maybe this should have been mentioned along with the other settings that mess up SONOS.

[@troymcdonald]

Thought you might have a recommend and how to video on snap shots… I didn’t see it listed in the notes/comments. Thanks

[@SpaceRexWill]

Good idea here is a link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hl6coKariMl6fas

[@pippen13]

10 logon attempts within 5 minutes, means that a malicious user is allowed to test 9 passwords every 5 minutes without being noticed (blocked). From a security perspective, the best thing (apart from 2FA) you can do is to expand the time limit for example 12-24 hours. And of course lower the attempts. 5 is more than enough. It's 2023, please use a password manager people! Great video overall!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Do 9 guesses per 5 min. You still have 6,634,204,312,890,625 (95^8) possible passwords with only 8 carectors assuming you have mixed case / special characters. This would take 4 million years to guess doing 10 passwords every 5 min

[@pippen13]

@@SpaceRexWill Can't argue with maths. However, we discuss about humans, if you know your victim you will not have to test all (95^8) combinations. Have in mind that the word "Password" is in the top 5 of the 100 worst passwords used, for two consecutive years. Anyway, my proposal is based on password management best practices. nothing more nothing less.

[@ccbphoto]

Thanks!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks man!

[@Propilotgill]

The man is a Genius!

[@melomane01]

Thanks. This was educative and helpful. 👍😃

[@griserifan]

I liked the video, and i dont know if this is a common problem among other people, but if you could switch to darkmode on the UI would help guys like me, the brightness triggers my migrane HARD! but like i said! good content!

[@mj31382]

Subscribed. Regret didn't have this during my first setup

[@phuket2753]

Thank you, super helpful video.

[@onemorestep1104]

19:05 Another case where you don't need it would be if you have an UPS and a powerchute virtual machine that can take care of that for you while having a graceful shutdown on top of it.

[@brianwalsh1844]

Some great tips here!

[@SpaceRexWill]

I’m glad!

[@dunthor134]

Great content!! 👌 Whats the best way to completely disconnect a NAS from internet? Should I set up a small travel router as a closed wifi network to stream content to devices? Thoughts?

[@bartoszkunat1134]

Love it!

[@dbascb]

Excellent, Thank you

[@reiterstahl]

Great content! Thanks for sharing :)

[@daviswh1]

Synology Active Insight has notifications that intruders we’re trying to access my NAS. The AutoBlock prevention worked great.

[@SpaceRexWill]

And is DSM 7.2 they are going to be getting even better!

[@mapleaf6672]

Data scrubbing is for NAS with more than 2 drives (just a heads up)

[@artevirtu]

Question, why does my nas pop up under locations with a blank file icon? Everything seems to be working fine, but when I first got my server running it had a different icon and now it's just a blank file. Thanks!

[@hayleequailer9872]

For the Empty Bin Task, I accidentally hit yes to "do you want to enable recycle bin for all shared folders"... how do I undo that? Or is it okay to have checked yes for that?

[@lupoal4113]

super useful...thank you!

[@theotherdude13]

@SpaceRex - can You do a video on "how to extend Synology lifespan" with tips that can help extend the life of the hardware. For example enable power schedule to power of the NAS at night if it's not used. Thanks

[@elmerfjot445]

As always a great video!

[@ejlbo]

Another great video👌

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks!

[@ludgerjagerskupper3676]

Your videos have been so helpful on my journey with my NAS, thanks a lot! Quick question about disabling the admin account. If I log in with a new (administrator) account, how to I manage to access the "home" folder. I now obviously have a new folder under "homes" but I want to have access to the admin-folder (home). Is that possible? I tried to give my new account all the rights and it still doesn't show me the home folder. Thanks a lot!

[@jarthur1369]

Ok. mine is set up in raid1. I don't understand how i could possbily need a backup. please explain

[@dzheliezniak]

What about daily quick smart tests and weekly/monthly long smart tests? Is it too much? I've read that quick smart tests don't do much, just test if the drive is alive and well; long tests take a while, but even then the read/write commands take precedence so there will be little impact on the users.

[@Tommy-st6ev]

Excellent video

[@memem1792]

How to sync the Nas in some city's with not same network speed?

[@JonneytheKidd]

Ok. So I boughht the 4 bay NAS a couple of years ago. I purchased it with 2 drives, leaving the other two empty. I just bought an additional 2 drives. So my question is, can I just insert those 2 drives into the bays and it will automatically add or expand those drives to my overall storage pool? Or is there a process I need to do to make that happen? Or can you do a video on this please?

[@DaystromDataConcepts]

Not directly related to this excellent video, but I'd love to have you discuss the elephant in the room regarding use of the BTRFS file system. The net is divided on whether this is a reliable file system. Half say it's great, the rest say it's not designed for RAID etc and should not be trusted with your data. Given your consulting experience, it would be fascinating for you to produce a discussion video on this topic.

[@SpaceRexWill]

So if you checkout my BTRFS video I talk about this. Synology does not use BTRFS RAID (different then BTRFS File System) this is the one with the issue with RAID [RAID5 write hole]. Instead synology uses MDADM for RAID, then putting BTRFS on top of this built RAID volume. TLDR synology BTRFS is safe

[@DaystromDataConcepts]

@@SpaceRexWill Thanks for taking the time to respond. I will go check out your other video :)

[@MatthewNelson12]

Will synology active backup for business work outside my NAS's network? Is there a good article on how to get that to work?

[@deacbeugene]

Thanks for the helpful video! About admin: why not to rename it to something less obvious and use this account for administration?

[@SpaceRexWill]

You cannot rename this admin account. Its a system internal account. What you do is you create a new user and just give them admin rights

[@drkoontz]

Great video , Good stuff !

[@francoisgs1]

thank you a million for this video , it really help for a nurd in IT. Got an issue when trying to follow point #5 scrub , I cant enable it say"RAIDI & ext 4 not supported" any comments ?? thanks

[@SpaceRexWill]

Weird, when did you build the storage pool (which DSM?) I think some older ones setup the non expandable (single volume storage pool) option which might not be scrubbable

[@francoisgs1]

@@SpaceRexWill Thanks but my machine is barely 6 months old :((

[@AlexRapada-ft6tm]

Thanks for the video spacerex! I have a question, on my synology photos app, it wont let me play videos for some reason and it just says. "ERROR Unable to play the video because your certificate is invalid. Please go to More > Settings to enable Play content over HTTP." I did this but it still doesn't work, any ideas?

[@noelritchie1295]

In synology back up for business, where do I select a folder that I do not want included in my daily back up, eg "my pictures folder", this folder is extremely large and seems to make the back up time very long, would like to have a separate back up for "my pictures"

[@cjramseyer]

you don't disable the built-in admin account. Set a really long password (64 digits) write it on a piece of paper, put that piece of paper in an envelope and lock it in a safe. if you do and you forget the password to your account or get locked out, then the only way to get back into the synology without the built-in admin is to reset which may also cause a loss of data. Dont enable SMBv1, even for Sonos, not worth the potential depending on what data you have on your Synology. Also don't enable NTLMv1. There aren't any modern systems that can't use NTLMv2 or higher.

[@SpaceRexWill]

The process to do a soft reset (password reset) is really non destructive. The only thing it does is reset the network config, set the admin password to blank and flush any stored encryption keys

[@cjramseyer]

@SpaceRexWill there are situations where it isn't quite so easy. While I agree with you not to use the built in admin on the regular, creat a separate one and ALSO create a regular user that does not have admin privilege. There is no reason to have constant admin level access to everything. People do that, so people like me have jobs. Always use separate accounts. Treat the built in admin as the break glass account and secure it as such

[@cyberwasp461]

wasn't sure how to get in touch with you, other than here. Have been having a small issue with my nas recently and have found many others experiencing it. I get a notification once a week regarding the Drive database was updated, and a restart is suggested. Everything looks good before/after the restart. However, it has happened about every week for a month. Like I said I've found others experiencing the same issue. Any ideas??

[@InhalingWeasel]

Will: Don't forget to empty your recycle bins! Me, a hoarder: What is a bin, precious?

[@TheElvisguitar]

Gold!

[@navigatingsideways]

Are you employed by Synology? Do you have thoughts or suggestions on how to best position the product. I'm considering working for the firm out of their new NA office.

[@SpaceRexWill]

haha I am in no way employed or associated with Synology so I cannot be much help here

[@jeffreytoolan9718]

Great videos for newbies, I have a question though. I ran the data scrubbing last night and I got a notification saying successful ran task. Does that mean the data was good or just the task was completed? Is there somewhere I should get checking the results on these tasks? Thanks for all you do!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Hmmm actually not sure. Either way for sure you know your data is good now. I am not sure if they would tell you if they found any errors that they fixed

[@AlexiviaNoViuTubio]

Nice tips! However, it seems that Data Scrubbing is not supported in SHR with less than 3 drives, which is a bummer for people using a 2 bay NAS...

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

I think you can if you've got bttrfs, but definitely not with RAID1 and ext4, which is kind of a shame for anybody that wants to use one of these for their primary storage device.

[@johnstubbs3573]

yes this a cool product shame they are so expensive to buy I would love one

[@redmatrix]

10:40 Be sure to do this from Storage Manager, not Task Scheduler, as it doesn't have the SMART options in there.

[@VforValenti]

Hello! You say in Active Insight section that you can setup email notification through active insight. But I cannot see any such option in my active insight. How should I do it?

[@SpaceRexWill]

It just automatically does it!

[@VforValenti]

@@SpaceRexWill ah, I see. Thanks!

[@tylerkolisnik5210]

cool, didn't know about the auto-restart on power failure setting so thank you for that. Is there a way to convert a volume to BTRFS from ext4?

[@SpaceRexWill]

There is not :( without blowing away and rebuilding from backups

[@squirtmph]

I own qnap what type of software do I really need? Windows 10 thanks

[@leogaming83]

I have my task schedule overnight i guess that's a good time

[@patrickhagot]

Synology is amazing but the only problem that i have is when sharing a public link they try to download and it doesn’t work!! What’s the problem here? 😢

[@lolorenzobal]

What is the snapshot he says is a better solution ? I can't hear the words. PS: I have a DS220J, so not sure if I can do a snapshot there, but I'd love to have it !!

[@lolorenzobal]

Oh and thanks, you have great videos, super useful !! :)

[@pawelpietryka]

Great video thanks, what synology do you recommend if I also want to run a plex server on it?

[@SpaceRexWill]

920+ probably

[@fanmrfoxx7487]

Mine does not say Auto Block, rather under protection it is called Enable DoS (Denial of Service), I assume that is the same thing so I enabled it.

[@SpaceRexWill]

This is different than auto block. Auto block should still be there

[@fanmrfoxx7487]

@@SpaceRexWill I don't see it anywhere. Model DS214se DSM version is 6.2.4-25556 Update 7 Under Security/ protection DoS is only thing there. I don't see it elsewhere either.

[@fanmrfoxx7487]

@@SpaceRexWill update: it is under Security / Account on mine. Sorry for the mislead. Do you have a video on issues with Synology stopped showing up on TV? I assume this is DLNA technology and likely an issue with Windows but I can't seem to find any info. Would greatly appreciate advice on where to look for solution or possibly helping to make a live user help video.

[@czereyski]

Hi, thanks for your video. Question, If AFP is disabled, the NAS is not visible in Finder in macOS. Any suggestions? Greetings!

[@SpaceRexWill]

You should see it if SMB is enabled

[@MikeVR180]

Nice video!

[@FunkoKoning]

Great video! Perhaps you can help me get rid if the constant writing what my synology does all the time. It is constantly writing something and makes allot of noise as the nas is in my living room. please help

[@SpaceRexWill]

You can set your HDD’s to sleep

[@FunkoKoning]

@@SpaceRexWill don`t see an option for that. In the resource monitor i see kwork: btrfs constantly writing... i do not know what it does

[@Dutch79]

What about @5:17: DoS protection?

[@SpaceRexWill]

I would leave that disabled unless you are a large company. For someone to DDOS you they need a lot of resources to just shut you down for an hour or so. The DOS protection takes a lot of resources

[@Avdarmaly]

What camera and lens are you using in this video? Dynamic range is decent.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Just got the R7 in clog3. I was pretty shocked by those highlights in the window not being blown out! Absolutely destroyed my old BMP6K

[@jlwtrading]

Active Insight seems to be only available under DSM 7 : I cannot use DSM 7 if it doesn't allow a USB based backup!!!

[@SpaceRexWill]

DSM 7 allows for USB backup through hyperbackup (better) or USB copy