Cloud storage is essential for a lot of individuals. They’re things every home and business owner needs to store and retrieve important files. And with the help of pre-built solutions like Synology DiskStation, it’s more convenient than ever to get started.
Synology is not only known for its high performance NAS hardware but is also known for creating some of the best software around.
A good example of this is Synology Drive, which is an excellent alternative to Google Drive. It takes on the latter with a clean, user-friendly interface and numerous features that convinces many to make the switch.
Why You Should Use Private Cloud Storage
Utilising private cloud storage offers customisable and flexible means to safeguard all your data. It’s safe and cost-efficient while giving you more control over those who have access to your data.
Remember, the protection of your personal and company information is essential. For this reason, your cloud storage system should be built and designed based on your needs, whilst providing you with complete control over who has access to your data and how it is handled.
In this case, what makes private cloud-based storage a better option than traditional cloud storage services such as Google Drive?
Enhanced Data Protection
Because of optimised data protection, using a NAS as a private cloud service will offer you peace of mind.
Running a provide cloud storage solution can provide you will robust file versioning with flexible rules. The latter guarantees adequate storage use, so you won’t have to make regular checks.
Moreover, you’ll be able to conveniently share files with others via a web portal. You can easily send files between devices and to other users with Synology Drive and the accompanying iOS & Android mobile apps.
To make things even better, private cloud storage includes extra layers of security to all your data by providing permission settings for different viewers. Options include Invitees Only, Public, or Internal Users Only. You can even specify a valid period and password when sharing files with the public.
You can take advantage of redundancy methods and multiple backups with enhanced data protection. Also, you can automatically and easily save videos and images you take with your mobile device to your private cloud, ensuring that your precious memories are safe and secure.
Ideally, everyone wants to keep their personal files in a safe place, but when you put these on Google Drive, remember that there is a chance that unwanted things can happen to your files.
We all know Google isn’t well-known for its privacy policies. This is the reason why a lot of people aren’t comfortable saving their personal data on Google Drive. This is where making the shift to using private cloud setups like Synology Drive makes a big difference.
With Synology Drive, you’re in charge and control of all your data.
No Subscription Fee
Another benefit of using private cloud storage is you won’t have to bother with any subscription fees. You’ll only need to worry about the one-time payment for the NAS and the drives you’ll be using and then you never have to worry again.
Google Drive’s cost starts to greatly increase once your storage requirements increase. Not only that but cloud storage providers are known to regularly increase monthly fees in order which means that you are never truly in control of what you are spending.
If you had your data stored with Google Drive or One Drive, and they increased the pricing to a fee that was more than you could afford, what would you do then? You would either have to find more money from somewhere, or you would have to delete some of your data in order to go to a lower cost storage plan.
This is something you don’t have to worry about with self hosted storage options such as Synology Drive.
Increased Storage Capacity When You Need it
At some point, you’ll start running out of storage space with the amount of data you’re keeping. But with private cloud storage, you can increase storage by adding extra hard drives to your NAS.
You can expand the storage capacity of the current NAS products by replacing all its drives with bigger ones. Another way is by replacing each drive with bigger ones while allowing the RAID volume to rebuild during each disk swap.
What is Synology Drive and the Synology Drive Mobile App?
Synology Drive is a file sharing and cloud storage solution built for Synology NAS. With it, you can conveniently share documents while syncing new files across all linked devices.
You can do this via Synology’s intelligent versioning functionality, granular permissions, backup capabilities, and real-time syncing. With Synology, you can even work on documents, spreadsheets, and slides within the same file system using its Office integration.
Using Synology Drive allows you to access files on any preferred platform through a single web portal. Here, you can browse files using mainstream web browsers while organising them using customised labels and Team Folders.
You can access data using File Explorer by leveraging LAN transmissions of the internal IT environment. Moreover, you can utilise desktop clients for macOS, Windows, and Linux sync tasks.
Synology Drive Mobile App
Synology also has the Drive Mobile app, which makes all your files readily accessible whenever you need them. The app supports both Android and iOS systems, so everyone can use it to manage their data anytime, anywhere.
Moreover, the Synology Drive Mobile app lets you manage and access files in your Synology Drive while on the go. Aside from the usual file types, you can open Synology spreadsheets, Office documents, and slides via its user-friendly viewer from Drive.
How the Synology Drive Mobile App Helps You Manage Your Data and Puts the Control Right in Your Own Hands
All your essential files can be managed by the Synology Drive app while keeping everything safe and secure. With a simple interface, you can browse documents and photographs, stream music & videos, and synchronise and backup data in a snap.
The Synology Drive mobile app allows you to seamlessly and simply access files stored on your Synology NAS, giving you control of your files in the palm of your hand.
The Synology Drive app brings together multiple file portals on the NAS. It works by simplifying data organisation by synching files across different platforms.
Mobile Photo Backup and Syncing
You are able to easily backup and sync photos and videos that are on your mobile phone, allowing you to store those precious memories in a very easy manner.
Photo Backup
The Synology Drive Mobile app comes with a few new updates and improvements. If you’re familiar with the DSFile app, you know it can be utilised as a photo backup tool.
Like the DSFile and Photos app, the Synology Drive Mobile app can now execute specific mobile tasks. One of these is Photo Backup.
You can choose to back up all files or just the new images or videos. Then, you can select the location within the Drive structure that’s best for your needs.
Additionally, you can choose to back up files when your smart device is linked to a WiFi connection. You can also do this when the device is charging or both. Plus, you’ll be able to create a month and year folder layout, which is very convenient.
Synology Drive features an upload settings option called Image Auto Convert. It lets you keep or convert photos during the upload.
Additionally, you have the option to keep your videos and images after uploading. And in the case of live photos, these are supported if ever you need them.
Two-way Synchronisation
No matter what device you’re using, you can access the latest version of these files. This helps keep collaboration seamless and organised no matter where you are.
You have the freedom to set a customised sync task that regularly backs-up data and photos from your device. Additionally, it will help you sync files to PCs for a more up-to-date workflow. What’s more, you only need to sync the required files.
The two-way synchronisation feature selectively synchronises your frequently used files to the computer. These can include the shared items from other accounts.
Aside from these, the feature lets you execute tasks on local PCs with grasp notifications. Then, you can directly share files from your desktop client to increase work efficiency.
Of course, your data will still be safe with history versions to guarantee the security of each file. It will allow you to restore files to any earlier point in time.
Multimedia Playback
The Synology Drive Mobile app is extremely convenient. You can browse images, and documents, stream music/videos, and sync/backup data with just a few clicks.
It’s designed to make things convenient, so you can access it even when you’re out and on the go.
Watch Videos in the Synology Drive App
With just one app, you can store videos and view them without any hassles. You don’t have to download other applications to make your files work.
Within the app, you’ll find the preview HEIC thumbnail that makes it easier to choose which files to download.
Being able to watch videos from the Synology Drive mobile app means that you are also able to stream any videos stored on your NAS to your phone. This is perfect if you want to watch some of your video files without having to worry about transferring the files to your phone and filling up your phones storage.
View, Organise, and Share Photos Smoothly
You can navigate the Synology Drive Mobile app smoothly with its responsive interface. It allows scrolling through and filtering files by time range to only show photos from a specific period.
The intuitive pinch-to-zoom gesture lets you zoom into a specific day’s moments. You can also zoom out for a full view of photos taken within months or even years.
Powerful Music Streaming
The Synology Drive Mobile app has a sleek built-in music player. You can use it to listen to your favourite music and manage audio files. Also, this app offers a more seamless listening experience by allowing you to organise these files into playlists.
You can shuffle, repeat, and rearrange songs with the integrated music player. Plus, you can listen with the screen on/off or while using other apps. It works like all music players, but it’s built-in, so you can save more storage space in your mobile phone.
Pin tracks for offline use to access your music library when you have no internet access.
Category Views
Synology Drive Mobile App features Category Views, which groups your content by file type automatically. You can create collections easily and quickly by locating the files you want in a virtual collection. After adding labels to these files, it will automatically create a collection folder under the Photo Collection tab.
The Synology Drive Mobile Mobile App can also do this for documents and other non-photo files. It automatically categorises photos, documents, audio, and videos.
You can also use the app to browse and navigate your entire file and folder selection. It’s a convenient way to access, delete, move, and share these. The Files tab will show a familiar file/folder overview of data.
Plus, easily view and access recent, starred, labelled, and offline files directly from the app’s home screen.
User-friendly Interface
The Synology Mobile App has a new home screen that replaces the “explorer view” for classic file browsing. This layout offers quick access to the most recent files. It also allows using predefined filters for convenient access to specific file types.
The top portion of the mobile application has a search bar where you can search any file in your Drive. Once in the label view, you can search for a specific file by typing in the filename, extension, or tag.
Another intuitive navigation method is by using tags and labels. The dedicated section on the home screen lets you select your label. From there, you can access all content by using the same tag.
With Category Views and the improved app interface, you can easily access all the necessary files you need. The excellent organisation system places everything in carefully curated collections, and the search bar makes file access more convenient.
Use Cloud Sync to Manage Data Between Cloud Services
What is Synology Cloud Sync?
Cloud Sync is a tool that combines the features of public and private clouds. As a result, you can connect your Synology NAS to public cloud services easily. You can choose from Google Cloud Storage, Amazon Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft Azure, BlackBlaze B2, OpenStack Swift, etc.
CloudSync lets you back up your data in real time and offers data encryption options. It also reduces the impact of unwanted disasters by keeping your data protected.
With Cloud Sync, you can connect your local Synology NAS to public cloud services. It also allows linking with on-premise storage via OpenStack Swift, Amazon S3 API, and WebDAV protocols. This tool improves collaboration for more efficiency and convenience.
How to Setup Cloud Sync
When setting up Cloud Sync, select a cloud provider and click next. For this guide, we chose Google Drive. Log into your Google Drive account and allow Cloud Sync access. Once connected, you can start configuring the backup for Cloud Sync.
You can choose two methods to back up your Google Drive to the Synology NAS. One way is backing up the entire Google Drive to a local folder by selecting the Root folder as the Remote path. This process will only involve one sync task.
Another way is to choose local and remote folders to stay synced. For this backup process, you can create a second sync task later.
Once you’ve chosen a backup method, you can set a Sync direction. Since you’re backing up your Google Drive, select the “Download remote changes only” option.
Tick “Convert Google online documents to Microsoft Office or .jpg formats” to back up online documents into locally accessible formats.
You can also ensure that all files can have a backup version. These can even include accidentally deleted data. Select “Don’t remove files in the destination folder when removed in the source folder”.
Completing the Setup Process
When you finish configuring your backup, click Next and go to Advanced Settings to customise selective sync. Here, you can filter unwanted file types & sizes or folders to efficiently use your storage on the public cloud.
Review your settings before applying the changes in your backup task. Once you click Apply, you have finished the setup process.
In the Task list tab, you can click on Create and repeat the steps we provided to add a new pair of folders to sync.
From the Cloud Sync system tray, you can monitor the progress of the backup. When you add a new file to your Google Drive, Cloud Sync instantly fetches it and creates a backup file.
Conclusion
Drive continues to be one of Synology’s excellent solutions when it comes to using the company’s NAS. Due to that, Synology is focusing on bringing new innovative features and options.
This version of Synology Drive stays up to date by bringing exclusive mobile functions while providing some existing desktop features. With the Synology Drive Mobile App, you can conveniently access the data in your NAS through your smartphone.
Also, the Synology Drive Mobile app is your perfect alternative to Google Drive. It looks and feels modern, your files are more secure, and it’s highly customisable. Plus, it’s also the better option in the long run compared to subscription-based cloud storage services.
