Setting Up Synology with Western Digital Red

Working on different computers often introduce the problem of syncing files, especially when they are big. Or sometimes you need to copy a s...

Working on different computers often introduce the problem of syncing files, especially when they are big. Or sometimes you need to copy a shared resource from one computer to another, but that the computer is off. Which is what happens to us lately. Thankfully there is Synology to the rescue.

Synology is a Network-attached Storage or NAS, is a specialized type of computer server for data storage connected on a network.

Setting up NAS Hardware

1. Unscrew the back 2 screws that lock the hardware cover.
2. Look at the bottom and there should be a sign on which side to slide where.
3. Slide the left and right panel in the opposite direction, the box should open.
4. Gently push the NAS drive.
5. There are 5 screws for the NAS drive, make sure to secure them.
6. Slide back the cover and tighten the screws on the back.
7. Now our NAS drive is ready to be configured.

Configure the NAS Drive

1. Ways to connect the Synology server.
1. Plug it directly to your router however, in some instances it will work like what happened to us. It seems like there’s some limitation or restriction to the router provided to us by our internet provider.
2. In case a is true, plug the server into your computer and see if you can detect it and install the OS. Normally it should work, if not make sure to check the drive and USB connection of your hardware. Otherwise, something is broken on the hardware level. Oh and don’t forget to set the server to DHCP mode, so when you plug it on your network it should be able to get the correct IP.
3. In case a is true, make sure to contact your router provider, that’s what I did locally and our provider PLDT replaced my router and it worked.
4. In case the router will not be replaced, buy a new router (I tried CISCO) and plug it on your existing router to create a subnetwork and there plug your NAS server. You need to plug all your computers to this new router and adjust the IP.
2. Go to Synology’s website and download the Assistant and the OS.
3. Install the assistant to your computer.
4. Run the assistant and locate the NAS server.
5. Install the OS on Synology or configure the network. I always use DHCP just in case I’ll need to plug the Synology hardware to a new network.
6. Create a new set of user accounts that will have access to the drive.
7. Create shared folders. Since we’re just 2 people who will be using the drive I decided to create a single master shared folder where we can save our files. In case you will use the server in your company you can opt to create multiple shared folders and have different users and access permissions.
8. Connect Synology to the cloud so you can access it wherever there is an internet connection.
9. The drive status should be accessible in https://account.synology.com.
10. You can install this app on your mobile device to access the drive https://apps.apple.com/us/app/synology-drive/id1267275421.
11. In the Synology admin interface, you can install various packages depending on your needs like anti-virus, cloud station, media server, and even apache server. Here is the list of all available packages for download, most are free https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/packages.