Synology - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For information of Sinology, Chinese Studies, see here
Sinology
Sinology in general use is the study of China and things related to China, but, especially in the American academic context, refers more strictly to the study of classical language and literature, and the philological approach...

.

Synology Inc (Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

: 群暉科技), founded in April 2000, is a Taiwanese company that produces network attached storage

Network-attached storage

Network-attached storage is file-level computer data storage connected to a computer network providing data access to heterogeneous clients. NAS not only operates as a file server, but is specialized for this task either by its hardware, software, or configuration of those elements...

appliances

Computer appliance

A computer appliance is generally a separate and discrete hardware device with integrated software , specifically designed to provide a specific computing resource. These devices became known as "appliances" because of their similarity to home appliances, which are generally "closed and sealed" –...

for the SOHO

Small office/home office

Small office/home office, or SOHO, refers to the category of business or cottage industry which involves from 1 to 10 workers. SOHO can also stand for single office/home office....

and SMB/SME

Small and medium enterprise

Small and medium enterprises or small and medium-sized enterprises are companies whose headcount or turnover falls below certain limits.The abbreviation "SME" occurs commonly...

. Synology aims to provide a different type of NAS experience with a vibrant contributing community and original features.

Synology products are distributed worldwide and localized in several languages.

Product Series (Hardware)

Three main product lines target the home, home/small-offices and fairly large businesses. The operating system is based on Linux kernel 2.6 GPL

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

Linux. Hardware components, including CPU type and model, vary across the product range. As with most NAS, emphasis is put on energy, size and reliability. Windows, Mac OS X and Ubuntu clients are supported via common network protocols (SMB/CIFS, FTP, AFP, NFS, WebDAV), using UTF-8 character encoding for compatibility. Native client applications are less notable than the comprehensive AJAX

Ajax

- Mythology :* Ajax , son of Telamon, ruler of Salamis and a hero in the Trojan War, also known as "Ajax the Great"* Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus, ruler of Locris and the leader of the Locrian contingent during the Trojan War.- People :...

-based web interface and out-of-the-box Telnet and SSH support.

DiskStation

The DiskStation is a single, dual, quad or five bay enclosure

Disk enclosure

A disk enclosure is essentially a specialized chassis designed to hold and power disk drives while providing a mechanism to allow them to communicate to one or more separate computers. Drive enclosures provide power to the drives therein and convert the data sent across their native data bus into a...

, slightly larger than the hard drives it contains. DiskStations supports several terabytes of combined storage depending on the model. Higher-end models add features such as Hot-Swap Hard Drives and dual Ethernet connections for fail-over and aggregation.

RackStation

The RackStation is quad-bay 1U or 2U Rack Mount storage server, designed to be installed in a Rack Mount Environment. This higher-priced line offers most features.

USB Station 2

The USB Station 2 is a mini NAS server equipped with the Synology DSM. It does not have hard drive slot but can be connected with an external USB storage device. By accessing the DSM on the USB Station 2, it can then stream and download digital files via DLNA/UPnP support within the LAN and on the Internet. It can also act like a device to share printers.

Expansion Units

Expansion units can be attached to selected DiskStation/RackStation to scale up storage capacity. Depending on the model type, the connection between the main unit and the expansion unit is bonded with either eSATA cable or InfiniBand. eSATA cable offers 3GB/sec connection and InfiniBand provides 12GB/sec throughput.

General Similarities

Except for the USB Station line, most Synology devices have the same features one would expect on a traditional LAMP server: firewall with port forwarding, DDNS, SSL encryption, user/group privilege management, rsync (as client and server), web server, PHP/MySQL, ADS integration, various RAID modes, SNMP, iSCSI targets, mail & print server, power saving and HDD hibernation, UPS-integration, etc.

More esoteric features include file sharing clients for BitTorrent/eMule/NZB, IP camera surveillance, smart-phone integration, Wifi dongles. Differences between models mainly lie in the amount of performance or storage capacities which are required by the user. All products have an Ethernet

Ethernet

Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....

and USB port, while some models feature an eSATA port for connecting external hard drives. Synology NAS units do not ship with hard drives by default; instead customers are presented a list of recommended models/brands they'd purchase separately.

Most models allow chain-linking to increase storage space and performance.

Community Interaction and Contribution

Synology stands out by openly embracing its power-user/programmer enthusiast community. Hundreds of ported and original applications have complemented Synology's own catalog over time.

For a programmer to bootstrap a unit is neither illegal, risky

Brick (electronics)

When used in reference to consumer electronics, "brick" describes a device that cannot function in any capacity . This usage derives from the fact that some electronic devices are vaguely brick-shaped, and so those which do not function are useful only as actual bricks. The term can also be used...

nor complicated. SSH is readily available, so is access to development tools and APIs, with a mild legal disclaimer but no threats.

The small USB Station 2 unit does not facilitate bootstrapping due to read-only file system. However some alternative but unofficial firmwares have appeared in order to make ipkg

Ipkg

ipkg, or the Itsy Package Management System, is a lightweight package management system designed for embedded devices that resembled Debian's dpkg. It was used in the Unslung operating system for the Linksys NSLU2 , in OpenWrt, Openmoko, webOS, Gumstix, the iPAQ, QNAP NASes, Synology NASes and...

available.

Third-party applications are either written in an interpreted programming language such as PHP—hence run on all models despite hardware differences—or compiled to binary format. Such native applications are fairly easy to find despite the numerous different CPUs used by Synology products. Public APIs let custom applications fit seamlessly into Synology's own web-based user interface. Installers using the SPK format can be installed from the web UI itself.

Synology's built-in firmware is updated relatively frequently with new features, even for older models, a practice arguably at odds with the usual business model of Planned Obsolescence

Planned obsolescence

Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence in industrial design is a policy of deliberately planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete or nonfunctional after a certain period of time...

through software/hardware binding in order to push new model sales.

Oddity

While source code is publicly available, Synology is opaque about models' CPU type. They are not listed in their otherwise extensive specifications and when randomly found in PDF product briefs come with a fine-print that specifications may change at any time. Although this gives them freedom to negotiate with hardware component suppliers, volatile hardware specifications are at odds with their general openness—and a risk to customers since closed-source binaries may only be available on certain architectures (e.g. virtual machines or source control).

Note that this info can be found on the official Synology Wiki since 6 April 2008.

External links

Product reviews

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