How easy is it to access a network drive when not directly on the network?

haaammit

haaammit

haaammit

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Very much new to this, so sorry if I'm asking the wrong questions or have posted in the wrong sub-forum, but bear with me!

I've recently bought a Synology DS218J to try and keep all my files in one place. I've got the drive showing up under My Computer under Network Location, mapped as a drive. This is fine for my laptop when it's connected to the network, but what I would like is to be able to access the NAS when not connected to my network. I know I can use the quick connect and get into my stored files via a browser, but I'd really much prefer if I can simply double click the drive in My Computer and get it to, idk, sign in or connect somehow via that.

Is this easily and simply possible, or should I just resign myself to having to use the quick connect thing via a browser? Thanks in advance for any tips :)
 
When you say not connected to your network, do you mean when you're not at home and want to access the nas? If not, in what situation wont you be connected to the same network whilst at home?
 
lmfy2k said:
When you say not connected to your network, do you mean when you're not at home and want to access the nas? If not, in what situation wont you be connected to the same network whilst at home?
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Yes, I meant when I'm away from home
Caged said:
Install the Synology Drive app on your NAS and download the client onto your PC.
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OK, I'll have a look at that tomorrow, ty. The plan is to have the kids have a folder each on the NAS for homework etc as well, so I presume their devices will need that too?
 
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Reverse proxy is another option - I have my Synology NAS on 192.168.1.81. I then have my domain, with a subdomain of nas.mydomain.co.uk. Nginx then is set up to pass nas.mydomain.co.uk through to 192.168.1.81:5006. All you then have to do on your laptop, or remote device, is map the NAS as \\nas.mydomain.co.uk@SSL\folder and it's accessible both within your nework and outside your network
 
GaryTheSnail said:
Other alternative is a VPN to your home network then access drive as normal via network path.
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@haaammit - This is arguably the better solution, although SMB over VPN isn't particularly great, and Synology offers a VPN package if you haven't got other hardware on the network to act as a VPN server.

Caged said:
Install the Synology Drive app on your NAS and download the client onto your PC.
Click to expand...
Is that the Synology Drive Client desktop app? If so, doesn't it work more like Dropbox (et al) in that it syncs directories/shares between your NAS and local system rather than just mapping a share?
 
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It supports showing you all the files in the share without having to sync them. SMB over VPN is rubbish, don't do that.
 
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GaryTheSnail said:
That’s strange, not had any issues here.
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It'll work but to a degree as being a block-based and very "chatty" protocol, SMB inherently has performance problems especially when latency is introduced as it wasn't designed with WAN in mind.
Which is why it's never recommended to transverse SMB (or AFP, NFS etc) over WAN but rather use something else, like (S)FTP etc.
 
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