All this is super confusing. Could you just please make a video for a normal person which is ONE person in a house and they are simply uploading photos and videos and documents from their phone. The most simple scenario that probably 70% of the people out there have.
This makes so much more sense now, thanks. I have NO IDEA why Synology didn't just call the "homes" folder "users" or something. Homes vs home is SO DUMB.
I'm not sure if everyone is aware that you can activate/deactivate the creation of the Home folders by going to the Control Panel and selecting "User & Group", then selecting the "Advanced" tab, and scrolling down toward the bottom where there is a checkbox entitled "Enable home service". Since I do not want any Home folders, I always leave it unchecked.
New Synology user here: That was really helpful. Although I do not tend to mess with things I do not fully understand there is a slight chance with me to do some weird things when I become impatient. Your explanation was very helpful to understand the meaning and architecture of the homes folder. I already was wondering about it. Thanks a lot Will.
So, if I'm using something like File History backup on Windows, does it make sense to send that to the Home folder, or should I make an entirely new folder at the root level and adjust permissions to that folder so it's only visible to that person and use snapshots? Also, I'm still not sure if I'm even supposed to use snapshot if I'm using windows versioning or if there's a better method.
Very good. Might I suggest that if you talk about not being able to use snapshots, the user could still restore their own files with the Synology Drive versioning feature. BTW, I just love your music theme, it's very 1990s
You could've explained it more clearly as: "Homes" (plural) is a container for each user's private "home" (singular) folder. Every user who has a login account on the NAS will get a private folder created there automatically. "Homes" (plural) should be visible only to the Administrator account. If it's visible to other accounts, you can disable that at Control Panel > Shared Folder > Homes > Edit > General > Hide this shared folder in "My Network Places." When we look at the "home" (singular) folder that appears in File Station's sidebar, we see that it's only a shortcut to the "will" folder inside "homes" (plural) because I'm signed in as that user. Therefore, each user will see their private folder (regardless of its unique username) shown as "home" in the File Station sidebar or when connecting via SMB on Mac, Windows, or Linux file manager applications.
🤨😵💫 oooooh myyyyyy gaaaaawwwwd 😵💫🤨 Well that's unnecessarily complicated. I'm just going to make one folder for each user and have it be their user name and tell them to just throw all their shit into that one folder.
I looked really hard at using Synology Drive which required the whole home / homes structure. The benefits were just not worth the cost of all of this structure. For sharing and syncing, Syncthing worked for my purposes and I keep my existing structure in place. This was a video well worth making and very well done Will.
i agree. it's just so much more hassle than individual shared folders per person. I wish i can disable it but Synology Drive automatically turns it on.
Great tutorial, thank you. I like your suggestions that homes should be disabled from the user's view. Do you have a tutorial on disabling "homes" so that users only see their own "home" folder when logging in?
Every user gets a “home” folder. Normal users can only see their home folder. Admins also get their own home folders, too, but they can see everyone else’s home folders.
Way back in the Netware days, we mounted the User-Home folder (directory then) to the F:\ drive at login. That made it much easier to understand from an administrative perspective. It's a shame Synology used "Homes" instead of something more intuitive. Great explaination on how it works.
Seagate EXOS X18 - 18TB - Harddisk - ST18000NM000J - 3.5" (this i cheap option more space ) or Toshiba N300 NAS - 16TB - 16TB - Harddisk - HDWG31GUZSVA - 3.5" can i use these in Synology Disk Station DS923+ - NAS server ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Thanks Will. Synology is constantly applying their confusing asian logic in DSM software. The confusing logic is also found in how certain menus are built up. /greetings from Sweden
This isn't exactly Asian logic. The concept of HOME folders was in Netware. The difference, "HOMES" was not shared just the individual user home folder.
Once again, AMAZING video... ALL of your videos are AMAZING! And I had been waiting for one like this for a while. That said, I have a dumb question. What are the rules of HOMES folder restoration? And rules for ENABLING and/or DISABLING HOMES folders in DSM? For instance, if you Clean set-up and RESTORE a HyperBackup with a new NAS but ONLY restore the DATA and NONE of the settings. And that restoration has Homes folders. THEN What happens? Are they just REGULAR FOLDERS that have no "Home" Status? And what happens if you BEFORE or AFTER this restore ADD users with names to MATCH the names of the Homes folders? And if you toggle on and/or Off the DSM "Homes" [User&Group/Advanced/“Enable user home service”], then what happens? Does hell break loose because there already are folders with those names? Does it just say “OH!” And then magically LINK and user those folders as HOMES folders? Inquiring Beer and Bed Vloggers needs to know. Thanks for your words of wisdom. And your ALWAYS FANTASTIC videos. - Eric ZORK Alan & Sweetie [ Professional Poets & Bed 🛏 & Beer🍺 Vloggers ]
What happens to the users files in Homes if I disable the home folder option? Will it get deleted? I presume I can just move the files to a shared folder? But if I do so, I presume it breaks Photos? Or can Photos be configured to just save to a share? I found on NAS at work (which has Homes disabled) I can assign a regular share as a Team folder in Synology Drive instead.
I'll be listening to this one again. I just got a Synology 1522+ to replace my old Drobo-FS. Drobo-FS was essentially a JBOD running Raid-5, and yes, you could make 'shares'. I understand that the Synology system is designed around multiple users and such, but wow they made this complex. I just have this for, well...a PLEX Server, and an on-site backup (yea, yea, I know, don't use a NAS for backup...it's just ONE system I have, and I actually use the 3-2-1 method of backing up, this is just the "immediate, it's here" system. :) Not really a fan of the interface either. Just let me drag and drop freaking files where I want them (which, yes, I mapped the PLEX share over and away I go with drag/drop via File Explorer).
Hey, just want to add that this video was one of the most important to me. I have bought a Synology NAS one year ago for me and my family stuff (photos, videos and docs) and made a preliminar set up structuring some features the wrong way you have just shown. Fortunately they have not started to use yet, and I have time to fix. Thank you so much for your great instruction videos. They have been helping me a lot! Greetings from Brazil! Rogério
Synology creates this confusion by calling it Homes and Home. They should be two different names. This is what happens when tech people try to be user interface people. I found a way to disable the Homes services, but then Photos won't work, Uhhhhhgh!!!!!!!! Dam Synology!!!1
I have several questions and I understand you offer consulting? Is it possible to have my C:\Users\me be pointed to the NAS so no matter which PC I login to I will see all the same files? If so, I probably need to get consulting from you.
Looks like I'm moving my files over to the Home folder. For some reason all of my stuff migrated to the homes folder and I'm unable to access anything from Synology Drive via iPhone files app.
No "Alright, how's it going y'all?" Sacrilegious 😆 Seriously though, it's like Will is pschic - was just wondering about clarification/bit of a deeper dive on this subject - thanks as always SpaceRex!!🙌
It is still a bit confusing. I would change the sequence and start with why do I even have a home folder (Drive & Photos) and demonstrate this. Then explain that each user's home folder is viewable by admin group via homes structure but it is best to hide homes to avoid messing things up.
You can tell the Synology O/S has been created by a bunch of geeks instead of from a User "user-friendly" basic interface that most of would appreciate. Time they got someone who can see through the technical b/s and just create something people can easily use.
It may be better to explain that the homes folders provide no benefit other than their use in photos. They don't backup using sharesync or snapshots. The folders are useless. Better to make a shared folder for any personal stuff and make sure you hyoerbackup the home /homes folder for photos seperate from the other imaging backup, whether it's snapshots or whatever. They are garbage folders that have no benefits IMHO
OK so now I understand there's a distinction between homes and home. But shared folders, setting up syncing so I can sync folders from my mac to the NAS is still entirely problematic.
So i bought my nas recently and i am setting it up now. i want to mostly use it as a media server / home lab and storage for my pictures. now i don't intend to share this with anyone else and i am not going to bother with being able to access it outside my own network, because i don't need that. my question now is where to best store my pictures? i want to use synology photos, but it stores the pictures automatically in the home folder where apparently i cant have snapshots. should i just do a shared sotrage with synology photos and then store all my pictures there? also, if i just use the nas myself i can just create another user and just make more shared folders and skip using the home directory entirely?
Interesting. I have not enabled home or Homes Folder. I get the sense that these are like roaming profiles for users... but as a simple media store I have no need for such a thing.
The more and more I use Synology, I see they created something that was already invented, only problem, they made a product that just doesnt work, it should be simple, backing up data the old way is just better, I dont recomend this at all, they gotta work on this product,
Hi Will, new user---thanks for the explanation. I currently have my admin account, and have created 2 user accounts. Is there any reason for the admin (me) to create a non admin account, and then log into the non admin account?
Yes, there is. For security reasons, you should create and log in to a non-admin account and give that account the lowest amount of access that you need to complete tasks. For instance, my Synology NAS has 3 accounts on it. 1) The original admin account is disabled, 2) I created another account and made that an admin. 3) Create an actual user account and using the admin account, give your user account basic privileges and revoke them as needed. There are big security advantages to doing stuff like that. Don't expose to unnecessary risks and don't use daily drive your admin account. Log in and do what you can with your non-admin account.
From what i remember from old netware os use was that home was a private folder for the user id to use and homes was the repository of all the private user id folders, and admins had access to all user id private folder for ensuring users didn't hide nefarious data (porn, videos, games, corporate data, etc) via a central folder location via homes
My Synology DS224+ doesn't have the home/homes folders. I set it up according to your Complete Beginner's Guide instructions. I have three users and I think it's working just fine. What did I do wrong/right?
My new Synology DS224+ also does not have the Homes, Home setup. But then again, I did not set up any programs that uses it, like Photo. My DS218+ has the Photos App enabled and hence it created the idiotic Homes, Home folder structure.
Extremely confusing system of naming and thank you for trying to clarify. I am removing everything I can from all my three synology NASs from these two folders and put a folder named DO NOT USE in both. I do not want to even think about how confusing this is and even if i spent the time to figure it out, in a year I will have to relearn the whole system again. I will just put data in folders with names that make sense to MY mind and the data that I am putting in them. My wife is technologically hostile and this system of naming is guaranteed to be laid to waste and leave all my NASs in a steaming pile of smouldering slag. It would be nice to be able to abolish these directories completely, not just hide abolish...
Your videos have been SAVING ME! Thanks so much! Operating with Tailscale and with a Mac, how do I get the NAS server name to show up in my finder window rather than the Tailscale IP address?
Thanks for the video! Long time user of Synology, took me a bit of time to figure what was happening. Could you do a video on "Synology Workflow" for the family (i.e. everyone has their own home account,) but in addition, the best workflow use case for 'music archive', 'home movies' , 'photos' for the whole family access, not just limited to home?
I don't remember when or how I created mine but there is a check box under Control Panel/User & Group/Advanced/User Home/Enable User Home Service I use the Synology Drive Client, so maybe it was necessary for this, don't recall.
How do snapshots come into play for the individual User's 'home' folders though? Apologies if I missed it, but for instance you can't create a snapshot as you would on a shared folder for the user's 'home' folder right? But if each user is using the photos app, all their photos are in their own photo folder, separated from the coverage of any snapshot function, I presume? Additionally, what about this scenario as well, if a user builds their entire file storage/workflow in their home directory, does this also sit outside any sort of snapshot setting that we can set? Again maybe I missed the explanation but it's Synology's slightly confusing set up here 😅
I completely ignore home/homes. Waaay to confusing for a new user. I have created main user folders on the NAS and manage permissions for each. For example, I created a folder called Documents-user1. My primary use so far is using Synology Drive so I created a link between the user's Documents folder on their PC profile to their NAS Documents folder, i.e. Windows 11 Documents ==> NAS Documents-User. This way, whenever a user saves something to their PC Documents it is all being done on the NAS and seems transparent to the PC user. I'm new at NAS, so if there are some glaring problems with this, please let me know. Will, thanks for the videos. This was the most understandable explanation of homes I have seen yet.
You mentioned that if you have two Synology NAS, one in Florida and another in Texas, and you want your files to sync. I have a Synology NAS, which I am administrator and have created a home folder for my photography business and a private home folder for my children. My sister has just bought a Similar NAS with the same storage. We were thinking of sharing the storage and sync between the different NAS devices as a secure backup. You said I couldn’t do that with home folders?
for anyone starting out this is great info. What drives me a little batty is when I want to Accra my home folder with Synology Drive. The name change is confusing. Home/My Drive. Then the mount point for Sync should just reflect “home”. And finally what is with the ability to sync photos into your “My Drive” folder from the Synology Drive app? I was looking everywhere in photos for some pictures until I realize the Synology Drive app moved them to the My Drive folder, not the Photos folder. Ugh!
So in order to have the snapshot, I should disable the homes folders, create a shareable folder for each user (Family environment) then point each of the used services to it to have the best of both worlds? For example if I take a picture and one of my kids wants to share it, or vice versa. Or a document etc..? thx
I have a user "Peter". So I have the home folder and the "Peter" folder. Is home associated with "Peter" folder? I noticed my CloudSync stuff is in "Peter" folder. Should I leave it there or move everything to home folder?
I didn't have any home or homes folders so I did some digging and noticed that I don't have the "Enable home user service" activated. I've been using my DS918 for many years without this so not sure why I'd want to enable this now.
I have a question: I have Qnap NAS and I wanna share the storage with my family members but they are aware of the fact that I can dent access to the folders I can create for them but also can enable access for me anytime as I’m the admin. So I wanna know how can I create a user who can create folders for themselves and only they have access to those folders. Whereas me as admin I can only enable/disable or create/delete their account.
Thanks for this info! I have data that I created in the Homes folder which when I disable Homes folder view as you suggested I get an error when I attempt to see the data in my Home folder. This is the issue i think you were referring to. How can i move the data from Homes to my Home folder safely?
I have the issue where photos are stored in the home folder by Synology Photo. This causes the problem with standard dlna server being used on a smart TV to view your photos. I cannot get to any photos on dlna.
I agree it is so confusing. How to configure photo if have two phone and laptop that sync with two different users? Should a share folder be created instead of using home folder for each user?
I love your videos, This new Synology DS224+ is my first NAS. And its only me or maybe sometimes my wife storing files on it so I am going to try and keep it simple. Your videos are helping enormously!
Excellent video - thanks for the this. The only thing I use home Home(s) folder for is pictures (which is actually a big thing for me since I have ~25TB of photos). I do backup the 'homes' folder with Hyperbackup to another offsite Synology and it seems to work fine. Is there anything wrong in this?
@@SpaceRexWill That seems to be true but I strongly believe some unwanted duplication was happening. I had solved this by creating a team folder and making that my backup destination.
You can grant access to individual user's home folders but that would defeat the purpose of them. It's easiest and safest in the long run to create a new share and grant access to the users who need to share files between each other. If you're using Synology Drive, after you create the share open Drive Administrative Console and add it to the Team Folder.
Completely off topic but I recently switched from a Windows PC to a MacBook Pro. When I connected to my NAS over SMB on my MacBook it’s incredibly slow when browsing through the share compared with my Windows PC. My SMB shares have several hundred folders with sub folders and multiple thousands of files within those sub folders. (I’m a photographer so a wedding could have 3k or so files). Any ideas why it’s so much slower?
@@joshknyboth are plugged into ethernet. Same issue if I connect via WiFi, the windows pc is still significantly faster. On the MacBook if I open a folder that has say over 2k photos in the folder it can take over 30 seconds to show the contents of the folder. The folder is in list view so it’s not showing previews. Black magic disk speed is roughly 28MB/s Write and 30MB/s Read. On the windows pc this process is almost instantaneous.
@@lowerleftside is it possible the mac and pc have different cabling (cat 5 v 5e) or connect to a different router or switch (100Mbps / 1 Gbps)? The read/write speeds suggest a throttled 100Mbps connection
Thanks for another very helpful and insightful video. You do a great job laying things out. SpaceRex ans Nas Compares, you two are my go to guys for knowledge as an noob NAS user. Thanks
