Greatest identified for his or her community hooked up options (like my beloved DS920+), Synology have lately launched a brand new product of their lineup, known as the Synology BeeStation.
The BeeStation goals to simplify the concept of a house NAS, providing a neighborhood community backup choice as a substitute for cloud options like iCloud and Dropbox. Right here’s the way it works.
Not like their extra conventional NAS units, the BeeStation is a sealed field with no accessible drive bays. Concerning the dimension of a thick hardback guide, the BeeStation resembles a compact black field that might slot in a nook of any room, maybe positioned subsequent to your Wi-Fi router (because it wants a wired Ethernet connection).
The BeeStation homes a 4 TB exhausting drive for the precise knowledge storage, of which about 3.5 TB is usable area. The highest of the BeeStation incorporates a discreet grille for warmth dissipation. Between the followers and the spinning inner exhausting drive, bear in mind it isn’t silent in operation. It’s quiet, however audible however, which is one thing to contemplate if you end up desirous about the place to place it in your house.
Setup
The BeeStation is focused at a extra mainstream viewers than Synology’s vary of NAS units, and it takes benefit of its streamlined performance to be as simple to make use of as potential. You received’t discover the same old Synology DiskStation fake windowed-operating-system-in-browser right here. You don’t need to handle storage volumes, set up apps, setup customers or companies.
The setup expertise is far more geared toward a normal shopper. You obtain a BeeStation app, plug within the energy and Ethernet cables, and comply with a few easy steps to configure the machine and affiliate it together with your Synology account.
The BeeStation app on the Mac is the primary shopper that may handle the info syncing. It manages the 2 major options, BeeFiles and BeePhotos. It is going to dwell in your menubar, largely out of sight and out of thoughts.
Apps for iOS and Android are additionally out there for cell entry. I ended up utilizing BeeStation Mac app for recordsdata syncing, and the BeePhotos iPhone app for picture syncing.
BeePhotos
The BeePhotos iPhone app permits you to again up photographs out of your machine’s picture library. For present libraries bigger than 15 GB, Synology suggest requesting an iCloud Privateness takeout ZIP file from Apple and importing that by means of the BeeStation internet app wizard.
My library is a bit larger than that; about 16,000 gadgets and measures about 30 GB in dimension.
However, I proceeded utilizing the BeePhotos iPhone app, which may switch from the Apple Photographs library on the machine. It takes time, however it dutifully copied over all my photographs to the BeeStation, wirelessly. It ended up taking all day, however it was painless — I simply left my cellphone dormant with the app open. The method is resilient sufficient that I’m assured it might deal with a lot bigger libraries, so long as you’re keen to attend.
Subsequent syncs take seconds, as a result of it is going to intelligently detect any new photographs taken and solely import these. Nonetheless, it doesn’t discover in case you delete photographs from the Apple Photographs library. They may stay in BeePhotos, and you must keep in mind to trash them once more inside BeePhotos too. This habits means you’re considerably compelled emigrate to utilizing the BeePhotos app full time going ahead, else have divergent libraries of photographs.
The BeePhotos app is completely practical. You may browse your library by date, with an analogous grid structure to the Apple Photographs app. BeePhotos will even do AI evaluation and tag your photographs into collections of individuals, pets, objects and landmarks. You may share elements of albums with different folks, with generated weblinks.
It’s wonderful, however is a bit of missing. The finesse and finer particulars of design are simply not there. The smoothness, the transitions, the little refinements. Maybe those that care much less about trivia of app design wouldn’t be bothered by this as a lot as I’m, however I missed the expertise of Apple Photographs. BeePhotos additionally doesn’t have issues like mechanically generated reminiscence motion pictures, or an iOS widget to indicate featured photographs on my iPhone’s dwelling display.
Equally, Synology doesn’t supply a local desktop app for searching your BeePhotos library. You should utilize the BeeStation Mac app because the sync engine, however it doesn’t have a consumer interface to really view your library. As an alternative, it redirects to you a (serviceable) internet app expertise. There’s additionally no Apple TV app, which is a giant deal in my family as I like utilizing the lounge TV to relive recollections from journeys and the like.
In sum, I’m not inclined to wish to use BeePhotos as my solely picture library app. I like the concept of not being beholden to a cloud subscription, in principle, however photographs are supposed to be loved, and I merely couldn’t take pleasure in them as effectively utilizing apps that aren’t Apple’s. Google Photographs is an honest substitute for iCloud, however once more that entails a cloud part. If BeePhotos app would deal with synced picture deletions, it could be extra versatile as I might use it as a secondary backup. As it’s, you must be keen to decide to BeeStation as your canonical picture storage, which is a step too far for me.
Replace August 30: The BeePhotos 2.0 cell app beta doubtlessly presents an answer, the place you’ll not get divergent libraries. The brand new app guarantees to sync deletes between the cellphone’s native app and BeePhotos, in addition to computerized backups of any edited photographs. Sadly, this performance was not out there for my unique overview and is at present in public beta solely.
BeeFiles
The BeeFiles providing is extra simple, as a result of there’s much less weight on the shoulders of the expertise of the file browser, in comparison with photographs. For BeeFiles, you may make your individual ‘Dropbox’ substitute with one button click on. A BeeStation location magically seems within the Mac Finder, and any recordsdata you set in that folder mechanically sync to the BeeStation unit.
You may open recordsdata and folders as in the event that they had been saved in your Mac’s inner disk. Any new recordsdata saved there will probably be uploaded within the background, with out the consumer having to do something particular. Somewhat cloud icon in Finder reviews an merchandise’s add standing to the BeeStation, similar to how iCloud Drive or Dropbox present related indicators.
In the event you right-click on the BeeStation merchandise, you’ll be able to drive offload recordsdata to release native area. I used to be fairly impressed by how seamless this all was. I might positively see giving a member of the family a BeeStation, turning this on, and simply telling them ‘save your stuff right here’, and leaving them to it.
Along with this synchronized location, you may as well elect to again up different folders in your Mac. Backup folders are merely mirrored to the BeeStation, with out two-way syncing. In case your Mac dies, or is misplaced within the discipline, you possibly can then go to the BeeStation and get better your paperwork and knowledge. All of those recordsdata are additionally accessible by means of the online app, if you should entry them on the go in a pinch, and you may make view hyperlinks to simply share recordsdata with others.
Conclusion
The Synology BeeStation ecosystem is there, for recordsdata and photographs. You may have private knowledge backup with out a month-to-month subscription, with all of your knowledge saved on a bit of web linked exhausting drive in your house. It really works. However it’s not with out some fairly huge tradeoffs.
I like my Synology NAS, as a result of I can configure it and set it up simply the best way I would like in order that it could actually work in live performance with the ecosystem I prefer to dwell in, and my cloud companies. Within the quest to simplify, the BeeStation is extra of an all-or-nothing proposition. And it simply doesn’t fairly work for me as a nerd, particularly so far as picture administration is anxious. For recordsdata, I in all probability would use the BeeStation as an on-site backup, if I didn’t have already got my Synology NAS for that goal.
For extra mainstream clients, it’s an interesting alternative, however admittedly so is utilizing a cloud service. The principle distinction is finally a private pricing resolution, as as to if you’d desire to pay as soon as for a linked exhausting drive in your house, or settle for a recurring subscription price to Apple or Google.
I do know I’ve members of the family who stubbornly refuse to subscribe to iCloud, however might actually do with having a second copy of their knowledge saved someplace if the worst occurs, and the BeeStation is a superb choice for them.
You may get your individual Synology BeeStation proper now from Amazon for $219. Discover out extra info on Synology’s web site.
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