Synology DS210J Help needed

welshdragon

welshdragon

welshdragon

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Right I'm new to nas drives and in need of some help as tot he best way to configure it. I can't seem to find what I need to know on their site.

Essentially I have four folders (video/music/picturs/documents). I ahve created the same folders on the drive plus an additional one for image backups.

Is there a way I can set it so that the drive syncs with those folders. Automatically updating any changes.

Looking at Data replicator it gives me the option to select all four folders but only one destination. Should I have done it that way? Created one folder on the nas and set data replicator to backup and sync teh four into that folder?

My reasoning os far for keeping the folders 'top level' as it were is for easy navigation when I get a media streamer?

Any thoughts/help greatly appreciated.
 
Will try and help you out here. So you say you have 4 top level fileshares on the nas? Nothing wrong with that setup at all.

I don't really know what you are wanting to do but I am guessing you want to sync automatically from nas to the pc? I am not sure if this is doable but the opposite is. Would you not want to sync from pc to the nas?
 
Yes thats it. I have the four shares (video/music etc) on the nas but I want the four shares to mirror their counterparts on the pc so that any changes I make on the pc will back up the nas?

That way I don't have to copy the whole lot across all the time when I'm updating my backup.

Using data relicator I can select video/music/docs but only one destintation to sync to. And when I do that in fairness its quick to back all my vid/music etc but it does so to one share, and inside that I ahve to drill down a lot to get to the files.

Does this make sense? ANy help appreciated.
 
If your PC is running Windows, there is a free Microsoft program called SyncToy,

This would do exactly as you want, it can 'pair' any local folder to another folder (on your NAS), when you run it, it will 'sync' the contents as you wish (several options)..
Just run that from your PC when you want..

Is there a reason you don't just access the files directly on the NAS from the PC? So all changes are instant?

If your PC is working remotely from the network, and it's a Windows PC, you could Map each folder as a network drive and choose the 'Make Available Offline' option, this will initially copy all the files over to your PC, and then any changes you make to your local files will be 'sync'd' to the NAS when you reconnect..
 
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I'll take a look at that thanks.

Essentially, being new to nas drives I don't want to have to keep manually updating the nas.

Not sure the best way to set it up either.

I keep my files in four folders on my pc (doc/vid/music/pics). I want the nas drive to also just have four folders/shares (doc/vid/music/pics) that are uptodate.

I want the nas to stay uptodate with my pc but don't want to have to transfer the entire contents each time manually just to update a few files.

My goal being a backup of my files on the nas. And the fiels easily accessable form a media streamer and a laptop?
 
I use the NAS as the up to date version. I didn't want to have to keep a noisy PC on to access files so the NAS is primary storage and I sync it back to disk on PC once every so often using robocopy scripts.
 
Decided to keep the main pc as the original file source. Backed up onto the NAS with the laptop and eventually the streamer using the nas just to read video/music etc
 
I'm having second thoughts about the ds210j and wondering if I should've gone for the DS211J. Anyone gone from the 10 to 11, and is the 50% boost in cpu speed worth it?

Are the transfer speeds better on the 211?
 
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I have the DS211 so can't comment on the 211j but this years new models are meant to be the best ever.

Are you finding transfer speeds too slow? Can you return it or is it too long since you bought it?
 
welshdragon said:
Decided to keep the main pc as the original file source. Backed up onto the NAS with the laptop and eventually the streamer using the nas just to read video/music etc
Click to expand...

Is there any reason you don't just store all your files on the NAS, and access them directly, surely the NAS can do 20-30MB/s read speeds and 10-15MB/sec write speeds? is that not enough for just accessing the files?

And then get the NAS to backup all your data each night (Just sync any changes) to an external USB HDD etc?

I keep all my files on my NAS, my PC/Laptops/Phones/Media Streamers all use the files directly, it's really much more convenient to do..

I appeciate some setups require full replication, but it's always painful..
 
Demon said:
If your PC is running Windows, there is a free Microsoft program called SyncToy,

This would do exactly as you want, it can 'pair' any local folder to another folder (on your NAS), when you run it, it will 'sync' the contents as you wish (several options)..
Just run that from your PC when you want..

Is there a reason you don't just access the files directly on the NAS from the PC? So all changes are instant?

If your PC is working remotely from the network, and it's a Windows PC, you could Map each folder as a network drive and choose the 'Make Available Offline' option, this will initially copy all the files over to your PC, and then any changes you make to your local files will be 'sync'd' to the NAS when you reconnect..
Click to expand...

welshdragon: It doesn't look like you took this post in, because it's your best option if using a PC. If you're using a samaba share then use rsync, else use the above options.

There's not much more to say. That's how other people set theirs up.
 
Zid_ said:
welshdragon: It doesn't look like you took this post in, because it's your best option if using a PC. If you're using a samaba share then use rsync, else use the above options.

There's not much more to say. That's how other people set theirs up.
Click to expand...

Shall give sync toy a blast. With regards the laptop would it be a case I just map the nas drive folders to the laptop which then if updated from the laptop would sync with the pc?
 
welshdragon said:
Shall give sync toy a blast. With regards the laptop would it be a case I just map the nas drive folders to the laptop which then if updated from the laptop would sync with the pc?
Click to expand...

This is the dilema, it would work in theory, but the PC wouldn't be up to date until you ran Synctoy manually (It doesn't sit in the background auto-syncing, it does it when you manually tell it to)..

Just out of interest, why are you mirroring the files on the PC? And not just taking that leap to storing them only on the NAS (And backed up to a USB Drive attached to the NAS if required)

Perhaps we can start there, because if you could change your strategy to just storing files on the NAS and accessing them via mapped shares on your PC and Laptop, no matter which makes any change to the files, the other instantly is then seeing the change..

Otherwise, you will always have to remember to 'sync' manually the files to/from the PC or things will get out of step..
 
I agree. Using sync toy now and it is exactly what I wanted. I primarily use the pc so this way I have a backup on the nas and the ability for the laptop to access the files too.

Going to use sync toy to keep pc/nas in sync and map the laptop straight to the nas drive. That way if changes are made with the laptop, when I next sync the desktop to the nas it should update as it will sync changes both ways?

My reasoning for this is that the laptop is going to ahve very little use, at best accessing photo's and video and maybe the odd document mod.
 
I think you are much better keeping the NAS as your main storage. It just sounds too confusing any other way. What if you forget to sync PC to NAS and then update a file on the NAS using laptop?

Edit: sorry your maybe using the sync function in Synctoy rather than the Echo. Either way I think it's easier to keep NAS as the most up-to-date. It has redundancy too if using RAID1. I'd suggest using NAS for everything but then just backup NAS to your PC disk every so often.
 
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I was thinking about that but having just set sync toy up it updates both nas and pc with latest file both ways. Thus the lappy can happily use the nas and when sync is next run it will update the pc. That way my pc is storing a local copy as a backup of sorts.

I will most likely remove the local copy though once I get more confident and work solely off the nas as you have suggested.

May get another drive for the pc, keep a backup of the nas on that in the event I switch over soley to the nas.

When I do make the switch I assume I can set the document folders to display the network locations (as win 7 libraries aggregate multiple sources) and thus itunes library will just build from my music on the nas drive? Or would it be better setting up itunes server?
 
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