Diskstation Manager 5.0 (DSM 5.0)
So now I will talk a bit about the features of DiskStation Manager 5.0 or DSM 5.0 in short , all of them are also on the more powerfull NAS systems but then a bit faster.
When you first get your NAS you need to install the DSM software on the NAS and then you are basicaly done and you can use the system. When you log in you see the interface looks really good like a desktop of a normal PC operating sysytem like windows, Mac OS or Linux. That is also what makes DSM so good, it feels familiar and it is easy.
On the desktop you can set icons to your ‘apps’ like photo station, video station, download station,….
The first time you boot on your NAS it is really empty, so why not install some packages to get more use of of it? The package center is a bit like the Apple appstore, android market,… you can download and install applications, on the Synology system called packagaes. There are lots of things to install from the cloud station to a mail, DNS, … server and lots more.
Then the file station is a bit similar to windows explorer, this is the place where you can see all the files on your NAS, here you can see a little bit of my iTunes library.
About iTunes there is also a package called ‘iTunes Server’ which basically lets you create a shared map inside iTunes with all your files. You can even set a password on it.
Then the audio, video and photo station are all a bit the same, it lets you access all the media files on the NAS and you can look, watch or listen to them. I personally do not use it, sometimes I do use the apps on my Ipod.
Here you have a look at all the Synology apps.
Then this is something I really like: the download station. You probably all know programs like Bittorrent and µtorrent? Well this is something very alike. for small files I mostly use my computer but for very big or slow downloading files I just add them to download station, so I do not need to let my computer on the whole night since my NAS is online 24/7. And when I wake up 9/10 all the files are downloaded. Of course only download legal files! As you can see I am now downloading Ubuntu 14.04
With the Synology assistant, you can use “Mapstation” to create network locations on your computer, so you can easily add or view files on your NAS, I made a downloads folder, a video folder and a music folder. so now I can easily use my downloaded files, upload and view videos and listen to my music without logging in on my NAS.
Then at last we have cloud station, I guess most of you know or even have a Google drive, Dropbox or Microsoft Onedrive account. There you have some space around 2 or 5 gigs available to use on their servers. But with the cloud station you can own your own cloud service with on the DS 214se 10TB of space when you put in 2x a 5TB drive, you can add users and set privileges. Really handy.
