Tag: NAS

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deutsch Storage

Nie wieder Synology!

Ich muss mir heute mal meinen Frust über die schlechte Qualität der Synology-Disk Station Manager (DSM)-Software vom Leib schreiben.

Seit ich Synology-Produkte einsetze — immerhin seit mehr als fünfeinhalb Jahren (DS212+, DS414, DS415+, DS916+, wir reden hier über insgesamt mehr als 1.800 EUR, die nur die “nackten” Geräte gekostet haben!) — ärgere ich mich immer wieder über geradezu stümperhafte Implementierungen von bestimmten Funktionen. Und was dem Ganzen dann die Krone aufsetzt ist der geradezu unverschämt reagierende Synology-Support, der Bugs einfach nicht als Bugs akzeptiert, sondern “gerne in meinem Namen einen Change Request einreicht, aber ob und wann der implementiert wird können wir nicht sagen”. Oder teilweise geradezu dämliche Workarounds als “Lösung” vorschlägt, statt das Problem richtig zu lösen. 🙁

Damit wir uns nicht falsch verstehen: Die absoluten Grundfunktionen (Dateiserver über SMB, CIFS, AFP) funktionieren selbstredend problemlos. Aber dabei ist ja auch nichts falsch zu machen. Synology übernimmt einfach die bekannten und bewährten Open Source-Dienste, wie z. B. Samba. Aber bei fast allem anderen, was Synology “oben drauf gesetzt” hat, gibt es Probleme. Die unten beispielhaft geschilderten Probleme lassen sich allesamt im Netz wieder finden. Unzählige Kunden leider unter diesen Problemen, aber Synology lässt ihre Kunden “im Regen stehen”!

Einige Beispiele von Problemen der letzten Jahre, die ich gegenüber Synology reklamiert habe, die aber bis heute nicht beseitigt sind:

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English Storage

Migrating from Synology DS415+ to DS916+

Today I migrated from a Synology DS415+ (upgraded to 8 GB myself) to a brand-new, unused Synology DS916+ (8 GB factory equipped.)

I followed the instructions given by Synology, but as my actual experience was considerably different (actually easier!) from what supposedly should have happened, I’m documenting them here for reference.

I started by upgrading the old unit to the latest DSM version, and then shutting it down. I moved all four hard drives to the new unit, making sure the same order of the drives in the drive bays was maintained.

I then switched on the new unit and launched the web UI in a browser. This is what I got:

synology-migration-01

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Computers English Storage Uncategorized WTF

Synology refuses to admit annoying “Cloud Sync” Bug

Since about half a year I’m struggling with a very annoying bug in Synology’s “Cloud Sync” package I’m running on my expensive Synology DiskStation DS415+ NAS. It is still present as of today’s DSM 6.0.2-8451 Update 2.

I would like to backup my photos to my Amazon Drive/CloudDrive. As an Amazon Prime customer I can store an unlimited number of images, and only images — other files, like *.xmp sidecar files, will count against my general 5 GB limit.

The problem is that Synology’s Cloud Sync will upload the sidecar files, even though I explicitly only select “Images” to be backed up (and *.xmp is not part of Images, as I will show you!).

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Computers Storage

Synology’s speed lie

Since a while I own a new Synology NAS, a DiskStation DS414. Synology advertizes this model with speeds of

Over 207.07MB/s Reading, 135.63MB/s Writing

However I never came even close to those speeds in my daily use of the DiskStation, so I tried to set up an ideal scenario in which I would get the fastest speed the NAS could deliver.

I did so by using a very fast client (a MacBook Pro Retina with a 2.5 GHz Core i7 CPU and SSD drive), and connected that directly “back-to-back” (i. e. without any network device in-between that could potentially slow the network traffic down) to one of the networking ports of the NAS.

The NAS contains three hard drives, a Western Digital WD30EURS (3 TB, max. speed according to benchmarking >130 MByte/s both reading and writing), a Seagate ST32000542AS (2 TB, max. speed at least 109 MByte/s), and a Western Digital WD40EFRX (4 TB, max. speed 146 MByte/s), in a SHR compound (technically a form of RAID5, so due to the striping involved speed should increase compared to a single drive configuration).

I then copied about 25 GB of large files (movies) between the Mac and the NAS.

The fastest speeds I could get was a meager 79.5 MByte/s on reads, and 39.4 MByte/s on writes. That was extremely disappointing, but it confirmed my subjective feeling that the NAS is slow.

To confirm the read data rates I executed the following command directly on the NAS, to have a means of a “plausibility check:”

nas1> hdparm -t /dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sdc

/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 328 MB in  3.01 seconds = 109.09 MB/sec

/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 332 MB in  3.00 seconds = 110.66 MB/sec

/dev/sdc:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 392 MB in  3.00 seconds = 130.66 MB/sec

This shows that the NAS is capable of reading at a higher speed than it could deliver to the client via the network — possibly an issue with the CPU being too weak to deliver the full speed Synology promise?

Anyway, I find these disappointing results inacceptable, and it makes Synology’s statement a “lie.” Also, I found severe instability and defects with respect to the VideoStation package and recording from a DVB-T stick. Plus the massive issues Synology have with the power-saving “Hibernation” feature that never worked for me (neither on this box, nor on its predecessor DS212+.) And I’m not alone, a lot of people have the same issue, but Synology seem unable to solve it.

Considering the high price of the NAS (almost 400 EUR!), my strong opinion is that the device simply is not worth its money. It would have been better to buy a HP ProLiant MicroServer and get more power for less money. 🙁