By default, it creates a one-disk fault-tolerant SHR array. The wizard will walk you through the process. Open up Storage Manager, navigate to Volumes, then click Create. The first thing to set up is a storage volume. Most modern routers should support this feature (called mDNS or Bonjour). Instead, to access the web interface in future, try using the name of your NAS and. Note that by default you'll be accessing the NAS using the IP address, but this can be tedious to remember and might change. You can even drag and drop and icon to the desktop. Just like Windows, the button in the top left opens up a menu where you can access all the installed applications. You can learn more about some of those packages later in the review.Īfter that, you'll be booted straight into the familiar-feeling web interface and given a guided tour. It even has its own app store with hundreds of free packages you can install. But your NAS can do so much more than just storing files. DiskStation Manager is simply the best on the market. It's this software that ultimately determines how easy to set up and use a NAS is. In fact, the Synology devices run their own incredible operating system, called DiskStation Manager. They're more like ultra power-efficient mini computers. This makes a NAS a great central backup point and secure file store, such as family photos.Īnother reason to use a NAS is that they're not just a case for some drives to sit in. The NAS does it all for you, and will audibly alert you if one of the drives needs replacing, without any data loss being suffered. Using a NAS makes securing your data like this an invisible process. Hard drives can fail at any point, and if you don't have multiple backups, you lose everything. This means one drive acts as a duplicate of the other, such that if one failed, you wouldn't lose any data.

If you have more than one hard drive bay in your NAS (the Synology DS220j has two), you would typically configure one hard disk for data redundancy.

Not just computers, but tablets, smartphones, games consoles, and smart TVs too.Īnother benefit is data security. The immediate benefit of doing this is that every device on your network will be able to access the files stored within. The 'network-attached' part means that rather than plugging a hard disk into your computer through USB (sometimes called Direct Attached Storage), you plug it into the network instead. Since this is an entry-level NAS device, let's take a moment to explain what Network Attached Storage is, and what you might want one. What is a NAS, and Why Would You Need One?

Surveillance station software