Synology Sync Help

Am I missing something with my Synology? I am on the 7.0 beta and installed Drive on my Mac but anytime I upload a file to it, it downloads on to my Mac.

Example: trying to move files from an external drive to my Synology causes the files to download to my Mac. I found this out when I ran out of HD space on my Mac moving a 2TB external drive to my Synology.

If I change it to one way upload then I can’t see what’s on my Synology from the Drive folder on my Mac. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong but I was hoping this would be like my WD MyCloud experience.

Any tips or ideas?

My understanding with Drive is that it’s the same concept as Dropbox essentially. I didn’t go to 7.0 yet though. I’m on whatever the current 6.x version that’s out. I have mine as two-way sync. Anything that is in the Drive folder on the Mac is also on the Synology.

That is my understanding also. I am using Cloud Station (the older software) with two-way sync and it ensures that whatever is in one of the sync’d folders on my iMac or MBP also appears in the sync’d folder on the Synology and vice versa — which allows me to keep the two Macs in sync also.

I guess I assumed it would work like iCloud and WD MyCloud where I could see what’s on the Synology but not have to download it onto my computer.
What’s the point of having an 8TB Synology drive if my computer is only 512gb and to see what’s on the Synology I have to have the files downloaded to my Mac.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m not explaining what I mean correctly.

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Syncing and backup and network storage are different functions.

I backup several folders to my synology. I have my entire music library on the nas and not on my macs. And i have several folders that are sync. Three different uses.

You can access the Synology without using the Drive application. You have to mount a network share.

Whilst Synology Drive does allow selective sync, it’s on Windows 10 only (see small print at bottom of Synologys page here)

If you want selective sync, and everything stored in a folder, then I recommend using a different software - I use Resilio Sync, rather than Synology Drive, and that runs on the NAS and allows for selective sync. However, depending on the NAS model you have, if you tried to sync 8TB of data, even selectively, you would probably run out of memory (depending on the number of files)

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Well shoot. I guess I should have read the fine print. :confused:

I use Chronosync (but other tools exist, including even rsync already on your computer compliments of Apple) to selectively sync files between the Mac(s) and the NAS (Synology).

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Are you using ChronoSync offsite or only within the same wifi or lan?

I’m using it in a local network, but can’t think of why with an adequate (and open ports if firewalls involved) would not work beyond firewalls into other networks, including “the internet”. If by your question you are having issues/problems, perhaps give the symptoms, config, error messages, etc. here or with the relevlant support staff at Synology and/or Chronosync.

I’m thinking of future plans with the Synology and possibly working remotely. Wondering how much I want to deal with opening up ports, vpn, etc. All good things to think about.

When I was doing more road-warrior work, I put importance on having remote access to the primary desktop machine from my devices used while on the road (MacBook, iPhone, and iPad). I setup open ports and VPN to the iMac, and then when I invested in a NAS (not Synology) I could access that too.

Turned out it was always less important or even useful than I assumed. I could easily live with keeping all my important files in “the Cloud” (Dropbox). When I touched files, it was to files on the machine I was touching in a folder(s) synching with Dropbox. Even if at that moment I was not on the internet and synching not working just then, it did not matter becuase eventually it would all synch up to enable me to use whatever machine I was touching. When I realised that I was not using this remote access I shut it down. I didn’t want the ongoing responsibility and risk for managing open ports for no good reason. I had no good reason to ensure something on the laptop to be always in sync with a desktop or NAS that I was not using at that moment.

So for me, it was not a technical issue, but how I worked and getting realistic to work in a way that kept things simple.

Now if you are talking about facilitating synchronisation more than just you but other people touching computers that need up to date files, that requires a bit of thought, especially to think of it is really needed. Then I still would try to avoid open ports.

If I were a road-warrior on behalf of a corporate partner/employer/client where it was essential for remote access, I’d let the IT dept tell me how to do it and let them worry about the open ports and all the technology.

But yes, Chronosync will surely work across the internet. But needed?

I’m a one person shop as well. I’m not as worried about sync, I’m more worried about having my backup process. Still need to think through how I work and how I want the sync and backup process to work. Thanks for the initial thoughts and gives me good reason to relook at it.

For backup (which is different than file sync) … I carried with me Samsung SSD T5 and directed Time Machine backups to it. Small, light. Just plugged in in when I felt like doing a backup. While other than fixing “oops” on restoring older versions of files, I never had a laptop crash which required recovery while away. But if that were to happen, my backup was with me instead of somewhere else and restoring onto same or new machine would be simpler and faster.

Agreed, I’m doing something similar. Adding more layers of protection makes me more comfortable but then it can become a headache. Thanks for your advice!

@Ben_Wah another option you can try, I haven’t fully tested it yet. But if you don’t want files staying on your mac. You can try odrive that might help you out with your needs. I was using them for a while where I wanted to connected to my Amazon account, but I didn’t want the files on my mac. They would include placeholders that I could download at will.

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