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Moments vs Photos

63
2
NAS
DS920+
Operating system
  1. macOS
Mobile operating system
  1. iOS
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I am trying to set up my Synology to best serve my family and I. One of the main reasons we got this was for data storage and most importantly a centralized area to house pictures.

I am a little confused as to advantages/disadvantages of both moments and photos, and which to use for my particular use case. I have installed both mainly to experiment but as I am experimenting I am growing frustrated because one of the things I hate the most is the idea of having to put my photos in two locations, in return eating up unnecessary space.

One thing I also am frustrated about is that at first glance it seems that you can not tell these programs to look in a certain folder. Meaning, my wife and I want to drop everything into a centralized location so I can see her pictures and she can see mine.

Anyway, now in the root of my NAS, I have the following folders:
- pictures (which I made in order for us to both put our pictures in)​
- photos (which one of the apps installed on its own)​
- we each have a folder (as we will be connected from our mac's most of the time)​
- homes (which something installed on its own)​
- home (which something installed on its own, I believe Drive)​
- chat (but that is self explanatory)​

The root is just becoming convoluted and messy. I want the best workflow and solution that works well for our family. I don't want to eat up unnecessary space with multiple copies of the same picture.

Something I want to figure out as soon as I decide the best workflow is I want to throw backing our iOS photos up automatically into the mix.
 
I am a little confused as to advantages/disadvantages of both moments and photos, and which to use for my particular use case
Synology made the decision for you...

Photos - Only available on DSM7 (and above)
Moments - Unavailable on DSM7 (and above)
 
Really?

Thats interesting because I can't access photos through a subdomain and its not available on application portal or reverse proxy.

So does that mean if I havent actually started using moments yet, I should just uninstall it?
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Synology made the decision for you...

Photos - Only available on DSM7 (and above)
Moments - Unavailable on DSM7 (and above)
I am on 6.2 and I have both
 
I am on 6.2 and I have both
Nope. You'll have Moments and Photo Station.

Moments is the response for those used to using Apple Photos: multiple sources to multiple folders within your /home/Drive/Moments folder and primarily displayed as timeline, albums, and subject tags but there is a folder view. Sharing is by sending out links to shared items. There is also a shared album, /photo/Moments, for users of Moments.

Photo Station is the older package and requires you to organise photos into album folders (file system folders). Albums have access permissions and can be made public. There is a public web portal, so not necessary to have a sharing link sent to you. Only one that has an Apple TV app for photo access.

In DSM 7 both these are disappearing and new Synology Photos replaces them. Photos is pretty well Moments in a tweaked interface.
 
Nope. You'll have Moments and Photo Station.
Ahhhh! You are right. Which you know already!
Moments is the response for those used to using Apple Photos: multiple sources to multiple folders within your /home/Drive/Moments folder and primarily displayed as timeline, albums, and subject tags but there is a folder view. Sharing is by sending out links to shared items. There is also a shared album, /photo/Moments, for users of Moments.
I didn't see these folders when I looked around. So will Moments convert itself to Synology Photos? Is it already available?
 
Any eta on the release of DSM 7 and The new photos app? I don't want to have to do some long drawn out move process.

this is a side note, instead of having our own folders in the root, would it be better to just use "home" folders? and what is the difference between "home" and "homes"?
 
Any eta on the release of DSM 7 and The new photos app? I don't want to have to do some long drawn out move process.

this is a side note, instead of having our own folders in the root, would it be better to just use "home" folders? and what is the difference between "home" and "homes"?
ETA on DSM7....everyones guess is a best guess. I have loaded the beta on my home computer and it seems pretty stable. I did so mainly for the same reason you have...so i could set up photos ONCE and not have to change/update my process when DSM7 offically drops.

home....this is your personal storage area
homes...the area where all the individual home areas are stored. HOMES is only viewable to administrators.

Safety recommendations...
I would recommend NOT using an admin account to access your NAS or any other computer.
Set up a new admin account with a different name...MySyologyAdmin or something. Once verified it's working, disable the default "admin" account. This makes it a bit more difficult for a hacker to guess the username and pw of the admin account
 
ETA on DSM7....everyones guess is a best guess. I have loaded the beta on my home computer and it seems pretty stable. I did so mainly for the same reason you have...so i could set up photos ONCE and not have to change/update my process when DSM7 offically drops.
How long have you been running it for?
home....this is your personal storage area
homes...the area where all the individual home areas are stored. HOMES is only viewable to administrators.
Also, what gets stored in each and why is there a need for both?
Safety recommendations...
I would recommend NOT using an admin account to access your NAS or any other computer.
Set up a new admin account with a different name...MySyologyAdmin or something. Once verified it's working, disable the default "admin" account. This makes it a bit more difficult for a hacker to guess the username and pw of the admin account
Thank you for this information!
 
How long have you been running it for?

Also, what gets stored in each and why is there a need for both?

Thank you for this information!
I have had it installed for a couple of months or so at home....not a power user, just a standard user. Seems pretty stable.

Home...any file that you store in your personal "home" directory. Think of it as your locker. I have one called "Guy", my son's is "Son", wife's is "Wife". None of us can see each others. BUT....when DAD comes in and looks at the locker room...I can see "Guy", "Son" and "Wife".

You are welcome on the info....It's info I have heard from others more knowledgeable than myself. I just try to pass on the info when I can.
 
When a standard user, let’s say called fred, logs in they only see ‘home’. When the admin logs in, called bert, they see ‘home’ and ‘homes’.

Within ‘homes’ there are folders ‘fred’ and ‘bert’. These folders are the same as the named users’ ‘home’ folder. Where ‘home’ is a pseudo-folder managed by DSM to make it easier for users to access their stuff.
 
gotcha. so how do you share files? say from a family vacation, etc?
You have a "shared" area that you can move or upload directly to. Or you can individually share a picture or folder from your personal space to anyone inside or outside your network (provided you have external access...which I have not done)
 

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So, is it even worth downloading photos or moments? Its looking like if I upgrade to DSM 7.0 I would have to download all the packages I currently have installed.
 
Before you jump into installing DSM 7 Beta on your NAS why not do this, assuming your volume is using the Btrfs file system... Install Virtual Machine Manager and then in that you can install virtual DSM 7 Beta. Now you can try out the new packages to see what they are like. Just a trial, with test data.

If you are going to use Moments or Photo Station on DSM 6 right now then I'd suggest Moments as it will be a lot less jarring when you do upgrade to DSM 7 and its Photos. FYI Synology are not on an annual release strategy like Apple, well not for the last few [many] years.
 
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Safety recommendations...
I would recommend NOT using an admin account to access your NAS or any other computer.
Set up a new admin account with a different name...MySyologyAdmin or something. Once verified it's working, disable the default "admin" account. This makes it a bit more difficult for a hacker to guess the username and pw of the admin account

In addition to this recommendation, make a standard user for yourself and let that be where all your data is stored. Use the new admin account for only managing the nas.

Reason is with the mapped shares between your computer and nas and any kind of admin account, if your computer gets infected with malware/virus, it can use the smb (your mapped network connection) to encrypt the data on your nas. This is how ransomware spreads. Since your starting fresh do it now, so that you don’t have to transfer data from your newly created admin, to the standard user. Eventually we can then get into backups and read only snapshots.

And 2fa both accounts; make sure you note which is which in the 2fa app.
 
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@fredbert what a great idea. Im not sure Im ready to go through that much hassle only to have to turn around and get rid of it when the new one comes out.
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In addition to this recommendation, make a standard user for yourself and let that be where all your data is stored. Use the new admin account for only managing the nas.

Reason is with the mapped shares between your computer and nas and any kind of admin account, if your computer gets infected with malware/virus, it can use the smb (your mapped network connection) to encrypt the data on your nas. This is how ransomware spreads. Since your starting fresh do it now, so that you don’t have to transfer data from your newly created admin, to the standard user. Eventually we can then get into backups and read only snapshots.

And 2fa both accounts; make sure you note which is which in the 2fa app.
Do I only need to give this account access to the DSM?
 
@fredbert what a great idea. Im not sure Im ready to go through that much hassle only to have to turn around and get rid of it when the new one comes out.
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Do I only need to give this account access to the DSM?

You can fine tune that to your use case. My standard user has access to the shared folders that I need and the apps I use. For instance I don’t do ftp so it’s no access for that. I have other users that have no access to anything other than the dsm login. I do that so they can reset their password when they get the email is expiring notification. The way they reset is to click an icon on their desktop (which is dsm url) then choose forgot password, even tho they didn’t forget the password the can reset /change it themselves. But if they were to login to dsm there’s no access to any apps.

Just depends on use.
 
You can fine tune that to your use case. My standard user has access to the shared folders that I need and the apps I use. For instance I don’t do ftp so it’s no access for that. I have other users that have no access to anything other than the dsm login. I do that so they can reset their password when they get the email is expiring notification. The way they reset is to click an icon on their desktop (which is dsm url) then choose forgot password, even tho they didn’t forget the password the can reset /change it themselves. But if they were to login to dsm there’s no access to any apps.

Just depends on use.
If I give the admin only access to the DSM, thats all it really needs access to, correct? Because, its all about making changes inside the DSM.
 
If I give the admin only access to the DSM, thats all it really needs access to, correct? Because, its all about making changes inside the DSM.

Admin will always have the ability to make system wide changes. Even if you limit your admin account, if your admin account gets compromised, an attacker can just give themselves (or your admin account) any privilege the want since it’s an admin account.
 

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