Noel's Muses

Let's start with media server, it has a god awful way of processing, it does not make use of port re-use, its nothing like what we're used to in Linux with miniDLNA, Synology should have used it, it's well designed and in widespread use, even as Netgear's readyNAS, it runs efficiently and very light on resources and is the only real choice for Linux, but of course Synology have to do things half baked.

Synology DS (7.2 at least) Media Server lack of REUSE causes a rolling port use through every lookup, it's harder on remote PC's resources and causes exponentially more network traffic than it needs to, connections have to be setup, actioned then torn down, unlike REUSE that sets up one connection, uses keep alive, does all the actions, then at the end, only one connection to tear down.

What's more is, even if you don't go near the Synology Media Server, but load VLC on a Linux or Windows PC and stream a DLNA session like directly from a DVR (no synology in the mix - or that shouldn't be), such as watch live TV via it, after about five or six minutes it freezes, all linked to whatever hell the Synology Media Server unleashes on the LAN, I don't know what other crud it's doing, wireshark shows a lot of weirdness, like it's trying to take control, so client freezes, every time, kill the DS and it will happily stay connected for hours, start the DS and within 6 or so minutes boom, frozen, despite the fact the session goes nowhere near the DS, it's purely wired PC to WiFi DVR.

It created such a mess, the only way to resolve it was un-install Media Server, this meant the multimedia share had to be exported by NFS to a Linux PC which runs minidlna to stream any media on the Synology, which with a dedicated PC is what I was doing for a great many years without anything missing a beat until I decided to try a Synology DS given a lot of people rave over it, makes me wonder if they actually do anything other than stare at its blinking lights to be such fanbois.

Although Synology offer rsync (a modified by Synology version too I might add) it only works with -e ssh style runs, meaning, it reads no rsyncd.conf, the consequences of this prevent Linux Servers and PC's being image backed up, because it saves every file with the ssh users credentials, but using real rsync on a real Linux machine, you connect as an rsync user, but rsync can be configured in its module block so it stores directories and files as the UID that owns those files and directories so your image backup of for example ::server/etc/dovecot will still be owned by dovecot's UID when restored back on the Linux Server, unlike using a Synology where every single file and directory is owned by your DS username's UID - what F'n good is that...

Imagine if I had to restore this machine here, it's a Dell Server that only has a few dozen domains on it, everyone having their own UID, if I restored this machine from a Synology none of them would have access, well, one might, and that lucky person would have access to the entire /root, courtesy of Synology - in fact the machine probably wouldn't boot, it would be full of critical errors since root wasn't owning anything, and nothing would run because postfix or apache et al weren't owning their files, and this is my personal Server, it's not a business hosting server that averages 800 to 1000 virtual domains each, can you image the hell and pain I'd be in if I used a Synology in that environment and had to restore, it would be impossible.

Synology of course want you to use a disk imaging software they recommend to backup Linux Server and PC images, I don't see why I should change what's worked for me for decades, not to mention that becomes vendor lock-in - like hell that's gonna happen

So I use a spare low power Dell i7 PC to backup my personal network of Linux machines and rpi's, just like the business side of things, and just like I was doing for decades before, I also use an encrypted external drive with long pass-phrases and encryption keys for extra air-gapped additional backup redundancy - no can do that either with synology, not unless I move to another proprietary synology software - nah, also not gonna happen, I can at least sshfs mount the homes on the Synology to that Linux backup server, so when it backs up to external drive it also brings in the Windows homes root.

Handling nightly backups of config files via ssh is also a mess but can be got to work, then there is the permissions of NFS fileshares, everything is "777" on multi user shares, even plain text files, none of that happens when using real Linux boxes. Synology Disk Station supersede's Linux's perms, they have their own ACL layer on top of and overriding the Linux filesystems ACL, again, working against you.

Another big negative is Synology wont work with NFS user matching, its users must start at UID 1027, not 100 nor 1000 where most Linux distros start, so it's a hellish nightmare trying to sort existing NFS shares with access rights.

The Dell PC handling all my *nix machine backups uses 23Wh, whilst the Synology DS with these disks was quoted as being 9w idle and 12w active, after 24 hours on the bench it's more like 14Wh idle, and 22Wh active, so the 7yo Dell mid PC with a mammoth amount more CPU and RAM uses 1 watt of power more than the alleged low power Synology NAS - I should have stuck to the Dell PC all along, interesting experiment, presenting horrific results for the Synology.

The Synology will stick around a bit longer, I do backup the 2 windows laptops, and it's a handy tertiary backup to my music at least, and if it shits me off any more, well I got two high speed NAS disks to throw in a real Linux box, my only loss is the AUD200 odd dollar NAS itself.

Amazing that a Linux based device has been so turned against itself. I guess they prefer only Windows users use it, because they sure as hell make it near impossible for Linux users.

I deeply regret buying this DS junk, thank god it was for home and not business. My rating for the Synology DS 7.2? Well it works OK for Windows 10 laptops backups at least so I'd give it a 2/10 - and that's being rather generous.