Everyone likes the concept of sharing files and folders from their computer and phone on the go. Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive are personal cloud storage products that have a common thread where they are hosted by a major tech company, costly in that these companies shake you down every time reach their free storage threshold, and you are more likely to be pushed in a direction of using products that meant for their ecosystem only. Synology makes a suite of software and hardware products for those who want more control out of storage.

• Synology Cloud Station Client Mac Download Windows 10
• Synology Drive Client Download
• Synology Cloud Station Backup Client

Additional Resources:

• Accessing a Synology remotely so you can work from home
  • A best practice guide for setting up remote access for under 10 user enviroments.
    • Note: It does not include steps for VPN or port forwarding

We have a new & improved version of this blog post!!

Accessing a Synology remotely so you can work from home

The maximum number of hosted files refers to the maximum number of files that can be indexed and hosted by the Cloud Station Server service. RAM expansion was not used during testing. Non-encrypted shared folders were used during the aforementioned testing. Download Station; Download Station: Maximum Concurrent Download Tasks: 80. Synology free download - Synology Download Redirector, Synology Chat, Synology Drive, and many more programs. Mac users interested in Synology mac client cloud station generally download: Cloud Station Backup 4.2 Free Cloud Station Backup is a free-to-use backup service that allows you to back up your files from multiple client computers to a centralized Synology NAS.

• • A best practice guide for setting up remote access for under 10 user enviroments.

The new post gets less into the weeds and provides a lot more links for a cleaner version of explaining a Cloudstation server and client setup. For more phone app details, continue reading here.

Synology Cloud Station DS Cloud Setup for iPHone

It is important to know the following settings for illustration 1 and illustration 2.

• The Above Illustration 1
  • The Synology name. What are you connecting to?
    • DDNS – name.synology.me
    • QuickConnect – http://quickconnect.to/YourID
    • FQDN – diskstation.domainname.com
  • User Name
    • Example User Name created in Synology DSM – Fernado
    • Password
  • Enable SSL
    • Enabling SSL allows for secured connection

ProTip! Use Keepass for storing all related information regarding your Synology user name credentials, server name, and setup notes.

• The Above Illustration 2
  • Shared Folders
    • Shares are enabled for Cloudstation sync access via Cloudstation Server
      • Defer to your IT guy or whoever set the Synology Diskstation on what share folders to sync.

Note: Some shares may contain a substantial amount of data. Be careful what you sync. By default, data will sync via WiFi connection only.

Second Phase

What data to sync?

• The Above Illustration 1
  • • I highly advise to perform “download only” option.
      • Basically, this options makes the data on your phone read only and the data sync from your computer or Synology DSM.

• The Above Illustration 2
  • Syncsub Folders
    • enable subfolders and all formats

Understanding Shares and Your Workflow

You or your organization must have a Synology DiskStation or their higher end, line of NAS products to store your data on for Cloudstation to work. Ultimately, you want your DiskStation customized to the way you work.

DiskStation Shares & Cloudstation Setup

Homes – Home drives shares are enabled for each user created by default. They are essential for storing personal photos, backups, and Synology Drive related data.

Video – Share is created when you enable the Synology Video Station package

Work – Share can be created manually by you and you provide your user permissions or group permissions to the share. Best practice is apply group permissions.

PC – Desktop Setup

• Local Disk (C:)
  Data that resides on your local computer’s hard drive. Use Synology Cloud Station Backup to backup data that is stored here.
• Home
  This is your personal drive. Personal data like old Outlook PSTs, photos, and docs should be placed here. Cloud Station Drive data is also stashed here depending on how you configured the app.

• Video
  Communal video data should be stashed here. Again, this is how I customized by Synology. Your communal data may differ

• Work
  This is a vague term for work related data that everyone in you business can collaborate on shared documents and data. This folder will be used later to sync with CloudStation Drive.

Network Info Sheet – Mapped Drives

Note: The desktop shares have to be added manually to your desktop unless you create scrips, etc for this to happen automatically. This manual add of the shares is called mapping the drive.

Below is how we break down shares and present them to clients when they are deciding what individuals should have permissions to specific network shares for file servers in both regions.

Note: Analyze illustration above and skip below the PC setup for CloudStation Drive if you have a Mac once you have read the summary of the CloudStation Drive software can potentially help you on the go.

Synology Cloud Station Drive Summary

The Cloud Station Drive takes one of these shares and makes it accessible on your computer and mobile phone when you are on the go. There’s no more tunneling into the network via VPN or accessing a website remotely to download your work and later uploading an updated copy. And finally, your data is no longer constrained by the limitations of Google Drive, DropBox, and or Microsoft OneDrive.

Cloudstation Drive Setup for Mac

The first step for setting Cloudstation Drive for Mac is to download and the dmg file.

You will now see a cloud icon on the top of the screen called “the menu bar”. Go hard and click on it if a setup window for CloudStation Drive does not pop up.

Cloud Station Drive Setup Screen

We use DDNS FQDN “SynologyUnitName.Synology.me” to find our Synology unit on the interwebs. Proceed with entering the DDNS name followed by your user name and password.

In our scenario, we are using DDNS not QuickConnect. QuickConnect is less secure. Click “No” to proceed.

At this time, we do not have a certificate. While this could potentially create a man in the middle attack, the likelihood of that happening is incredibly small. Make sure SSL is enabled and click “proceed anyway” to bypass the certificate issues.

This is where things get somewhat tricky. There are default sections or locations to be synced that can edited:

• Synology.me
  • /home/CloudStation/Drive à Change the Synology share to the department share you are looking for. In this example it is: Synology.me
    • Synology.me /Sales
  • MacBook-Pro
    • /users/UserName/CloudStation à Change to a more ideal location to find the synced folders on your Mac
      • /users/UserName/Documents (as illustrated below)

Edit first section to “Sales” share

After a couple edits, the CloudStation Drive should look like the illustration below…

Make sure you add the “CloudStation” synced folder to “Favorites” for easy accessibility.

Cloud Drive Setup for the PC

In this scenario, we choose “client” or the “M drive” to sync with Cloud Station Drive.

Get Going! – Download Cloud Station Drive

Once download, run the install and follow the pics below. It is important to know before getting start how you authenticate to your Synology NAS. Please grab those credentials before proceeding. The typical DDNS used for server connection ends in Synology.me

DDNS: xxxxx.synology.me

Credentials: UserNamePassword (User name is usually first name)

Don’t select QuickConnect unless you absolutely have to. It is not as secure as the other methods for authenticating with the Synology.

Say no to QuickConnect

This may be an issue if you don’t have an SSL cert. In my case, we do not have an SSL certificate. So click “proceed anyway” to co

The Selected folder on your PC and NAS will be Syncronized.

Here’s the interesting part. There are two sections to edit from.

• I would leave the bottom one as the default location and it will end up as an additional folder to your window library and a shortcut will be placed on your desktop for accessing the synced data.
• Referring back to what share we chose to sync, we chose “client” and you select the top section to edit and select “client” to sync. Alternately, we could have chosen something like your home drive. In that case, we select “CloudStation (home)”

Select Share to Sync

Select “Finish” once complete and add “cloudstation” under c:usersusername to “quick access” when in File Explore of Windows.

Adding additional Shares to Sync

There’s a little unfortunate and undesirable affect when adding more than one CloudStation Drive “Sync Task” to the application. Quick Access pins look the same as you add more tasks as displayed on the pic to right. You will not be able to change the name of the folders as this will break the file path and the sync will fail. I would recommend creating the sync tasks from cloud station drive and unticking “create an empty CloudStation folder”. By doing this the folder will retain the original folder name you will no longer need to rename it. Follow the steps below to proceed:

1. Select Cloudstation Drive application from the system tray or under program filessynology
2. Click “create” and connect to the existing Synology NAS or enter the credentials like in the initial the setup documented up top.
3. Click the Synology to edit and share to sync

Select Share to Sync

4. Then select the computer to edit. Reference the above picture of the “E5570-PC”. Edit your computer

5. Uncheck “create an empty CloudStation folder” like reference below. Make sure you create an appropriate folder name usually under Documents or Desktop to sync the task to as displayed in the photo on the right and find “task” or whatever you named it to sync to it. The picture on the left we found the path for the “sync test” folder we created. Basically, name it whatever you want as long as it make sense for when you pin it for Quick Access.

6. Pin sync folder to Quick Access

Cloud Station Drive Troubleshooting

The unfortunate side of Cloud Station Drive is when it breaks. Sometimes the Cloud Station agent on users workstation stops syncing for no apparent reason. You have to “delete tasks” and recreate them but I highly recommend documenting the location of the workstation’s local path Cloud Station syncs from before proceeding. Also, two way syncing will overwrite some data that’s newer. You will have to figure out the file conflicts sooner than later.

Synology Cloud Station Client Mac Download Windows 10

My documented sync paths…

c:usersUser_Namecloudstation (default)
c:usersUser_Namedocumentsoperations-othertasks
c:usersUser_Namedocumentssales – marketing

Need to report issues to Synology Support? Try proving the daemon log…

• Windows: C:Users<username>AppDataLocalSynologyDrivelog
  • Windows XP, C:Documents and Settings<user_name>Local SettingsApplication DataSynologyDrivelog
  • W10, C:UsersUser_NameAppDataLocalSynologyDrivelog
• Mac: /Users/<user_name>/.SynologyDrive/log
• Linux: $HOME/.SynologyDrive/log

Synology Cloud Station Mobile App Support – DS Cloud

Android Setup

Step 1) Login Screen

Step 4 ) Download Only
*** Very Important Step

Let us know if you are still struggling with the setup for the Synology Cloud Station. We provide remote and on-site support for all NAS products.

What can Synology backup & cloud services help me with? Do they have the packages and function that I need? With all the new solutions from Synology, things can be complicated. Major releases like DMS6 is both a welcoming update and can also confuse. In this article, I will explain all the backup and cloud software the NAS diskstation provide us.

Synology Diskstations with DSM 6 has several ways to do backups. At first, it can be a bit confusing, but every Synology backup and sync solution have its purpose and its uses. I have listed all the backup and sync solutions below and how it works.

Hyper Backup – The main Synology backup solution

First is the new backup solution named Hyper Backup. This is the primary backup for the diskstation. You can backup important configuration files, application configuration files and other folders you chose with both compression and client-side encryption if you wish.

The backup destination can be on the same diskstation (the same or on a different volume) or another diskstation.

Backup to another diskstation is, of course, the best solutions and especially if stored at a remote location. This backup can be scheduled and you can also run in rotation with up to 254 versions. To schedule the backup with versions is the preferred solution.

Hyper Backup Vault is an application that let other diskstation’s backup to your diskstation with Hyper Backup.

Snapshot Replication

Snapshot Replication is a backup tool for your diskstation that take snapshots of your chosen folders and replicate it to a remote diskstation on a chosen schedule. You can also take a snapshot replication of the backup diskstation so you have multiple copies. I think this is more for companies to use.

Cloud Station Sharesync

Cloud Station Sharesync is an application that syncs your chosen shared folders with other diskstations. With this method, you have the same content in the shared folders on all the selected diskstation. This is a great application if you have friends with a diskstation and you want to sync the content with them. This can also work as a slave server in case of hard disk failure. If one diskstation have a failure, you can connect with the slave (spare).

Cloud Station Server

Cloud Station Server is an application that has an overview of the different cloud applications below and their settings. Here you can easily download the software needed to your PC, Mac or smartphone. You see the different clients in the client list and have logs. You can also enable up to 32 versions of the altered files and folders. Cloud Station Server is the mastermind in your cloud.

Cloud Station Backup

Cloud Station Backup is a backup solution for your computer. You can backup almost all of your hard drives and the data will be stored on the diskstation with up to 32 versions. You can transfer the files with SSL encryption but the files will be stored unencrypted in your home folder on the Diskstation.

Cloud Station Drive

Cloud Station Drive is a sync application and works similar to Dropbox except the data will be stored on your Diskstation and not on a remote unknown server. It let you make your own private cloud and will sync data between multiple computers you choose and multiple Diskstations with up to 32 versions of your files like Cloud Station Backup. You also have access to your cloud with DS cloud from smartphones or tablets.

Cloud Sync

Cloud Sync let your diskstation connect and backup to cloud providers like Dropbox and Google Drive. You can connect to the cloud provider and set the behavior of your diskstaion.

Synology Drive Client Download

If a file is deleted on your diskstation, do you want to delete the file in the cloud or do you want to download the missing file? I have chosen to download since I use it as a backup of important files like photos and documents. I work with Dropbox on my own computer and not on the diskstation so if some files are missing, something is wrong.

You can connect to many public clouds but I connect to the two above only. The one I’m missing and that’s ICloud. I have an Ipad so I miss ICloud support and hope Synology will add it in the future l

Backup to public providers

You also have the ability to backup to Glacier Backup and IDrive Backup to mention some of them. More are added on a regular basis. If you have some computer skills you can also backup to other services that are not directly supported by Synology. It can be some work to install and maintain solutions not supported and is something I don’t want to do.

Synology Cloud Station Backup Client

You can also backup to an external USB drive you have connected to your Diskstation. I have not tested this solution myself since I see some complaints about slow transfer speed. You use Hyper Backup as an application. We have so many other remote and cloud-based solutions that work great. This is nice to have, but not something I want to do.

What is your experience with Synology Backup and sync applications?