Where do I begin (newbie)

[Hosaltezza]

Just purchased at synology DS 718+ with 2 4tb seagate iron wolf hard drives . I wanna use it for my photography to back up my pictures and use it as a cloud and backing up the pictures on mine and my wife’s iPhone . Where do I start ? Thanks in advance for any info .

 

[WST16]

Hi @Hosaltezza

Congratulations on your purchase

There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Assuming that your NAS is already running and accessible locally on the network in a mirrored disk configuration, and if all you need is internal access (through your LAN), I think you’re pretty much ready.

You can take a look at Synology’s Moments and Photo Station. These are two packages that deal with photos and can be installed from Synology’s package center. Here’s a comparison of the two.

Are these all iPhone photos or do you have a camera (SD card) too (RAW photos)? USB copy is good for quickly backing up SD cards.

If you don’t care about showing the photos you backup and you just want a backup (like I do), then you might use a paid app like PhtoSync for your iPhones for that (I use it and like it).

If you want external access to your NAS then there‘re two options. QuickConnect and DDNS.

You’ll need to think about your backup strategy too. That is backing up the NAS.

Maybe if you share more details of your grand scheme for the new DS, we can offer more tailored suggestions that can fit into the bigger picture

 

[Rusty]

@Hosaltezza welcome to the forum. As @WST16 said, grats on your purchase. 718 is a very powerful and capable machine that will allow you multiple choices. Would agree that you should talk a bit about your MO with this device and maybe there will be more ideas coming your way.

Worth mentioning that in the upcoming DSM7 (later in 2020) there will be a new Synology Photos app coming as well (a merge of Photostation and Moments, 2 current apps). There is already info on that app online and on Syno YT channel as well.

Ask away and welcome again.

 

[fredbert]

Here's info I wrote for my family about photo management in DSM. Like @Rusty says, DSM 7 will have a new photo package that somehow merges the two current options. Photo Station haas been around for some years while Moments is a couple of years old...

This is written from a home user point of view and iOS / Mac too. The bit about using Synology C2 Backup is what I do and a paid subscription but you may want to think about doing something similar (managed with Hyper Backup).

Which application?

Synology has two packages for photos and videos:

• Moments is a new application focused on home users and is most like Apple's Photos app on Mac and iOS. It will process photos for time, location, people, subjects (sometimes cats are dogs but it may be able to learn to make better decisions!), and tags. It takes whatever folders are within your Moments folder and makes albums across them and you can share them using web links.
• Photo Station is older and has access based on folders, so that public folders can be access from the Internet. It has some of the processing for location and tags but is not as sophisticated. However, it does have a map view for showing photos.

Moments is best for throwing photos and videos at it and then letting it do all the organisation, it's for home users that want to do a bit of photo sharing but without doing lots of hard work.

Photo Station is more flexible for sharing and organising, even with a basic editor. It needs to be told what you want it to do ... we've had it for three years and you haven't used it.


Phone apps

Both of these have iOS apps, with Moments being more like Apple Photos. They both support uploading new photos and videos (video is something Apple's photo-stream doesn't do, upload needs to be forced via a shared album) and they can be set to only do this over WiFi.

Where Moments will upload when the iOS app is opened (or still active in the phone's background), the DS photo app will upload to Photo Station even when the app isn't running (like Apple's Photos app). To do this requires a 'geo-fence' and GPS to be enabled all the time for DS photo: a geo-fence is a saved location that triggers an action when you're there, e.g. when you get home the phone detects it and tells DS photo to upload new photos and videos.

The two applications use different folders in your 'home' folder so they will upload your phone's photos and videos to a different location:

• Moments is part of the new Drive package and its main folder is:
  • home / Drive / Moments
• Photo Station has your personal folder here:
  • home / photo (and you will need to make a private album folder)

What to do? Moments is the simpler application to use for 'snappers', so long as you remember to open the iOS app every so often to get the new photos uploaded.

If you really need a map view of where photos were taken then Photo Station is the one to use. If the minor battery drain of the GPS to get automated uploads is OK then that's a useful feature.

Do this...

I suggest using Moments, it's simpler, does a lot for little effort, and both the web and iOS apps are nicer than Photo Station.

If you won't open the Moments iOS app very often then using DS photo with a geo-fence trigger will guarantee that videos are backed up: just run Photo Station (personal) once to make the home / photo folder.

(Remember that you'll probably still have iCloud uploading photos too.)

All our Moments folders are automatically backed up to secure Synology C2 Cloud Backup storage, in case the home system fails ... and both its home backups do too.

Getting started

Within the home / Drive / Moments folder there will be some folders created by Moments when you upload from your phone and the web app, these are: Mobile and Web. Inside will be folders for each device you upload.

To have all your photo library(ies) available from the web and iOS app you'll need to import them. I suggest creating a new folder within Moments for each library and then it's just a matter of connecting your Mac/PC to the Synology NAS and uploading them. This is easier and quicker to do at home using local network connections.

Once the files have been uploaded the NAS can take quite some time to process them, so be patient.

 

[Hosaltezza]

@Hosaltezza welcome to the forum. As @WST16 said, grats on your purchase. 718 is a very powerful and capable machine that will allow you multiple choices. Would agree that you should talk a bit about your MO with this device and maybe there will be more ideas coming your way.

Worth mentioning that in the upcoming DSM7 (later in 2020) there will be a new Synology Photos app coming as well (a merge of Photostation and Moments, 2 current apps). There is already info on that app online and on Syno YT channel as well.

Ask away and welcome again.

Thanks Rusty i will check out the Syno YT channel

 

[Hosaltezza]

Here's info I wrote for my family about photo management in DSM. Like @Rusty says, DSM 7 will have a new photo package that somehow merges the two current options. Photo Station haas been around for some years while Moments is a couple of years old...

This is written from a home user point of view and iOS / Mac too. The bit about using Synology C2 Backup is what I do and a paid subscription but you may want to think about doing something similar (managed with Hyper Backup).

Which application?

Synology has two packages for photos and videos:

• Moments is a new application focused on home users and is most like Apple's Photos app on Mac and iOS. It will process photos for time, location, people, subjects (sometimes cats are dogs but it may be able to learn to make better decisions!), and tags. It takes whatever folders are within your Moments folder and makes albums across them and you can share them using web links.
• Photo Station is older and has access based on folders, so that public folders can be access from the Internet. It has some of the processing for location and tags but is not as sophisticated. However, it does have a map view for showing photos.

Moments is best for throwing photos and videos at it and then letting it do all the organisation, it's for home users that want to do a bit of photo sharing but without doing lots of hard work.

Photo Station is more flexible for sharing and organising, even with a basic editor. It needs to be told what you want it to do ... we've had it for three years and you haven't used it.


Phone apps

Both of these have iOS apps, with Moments being more like Apple Photos. They both support uploading new photos and videos (video is something Apple's photo-stream doesn't do, upload needs to be forced via a shared album) and they can be set to only do this over WiFi.

Where Moments will upload when the iOS app is opened (or still active in the phone's background), the DS photo app will upload to Photo Station even when the app isn't running (like Apple's Photos app). To do this requires a 'geo-fence' and GPS to be enabled all the time for DS photo: a geo-fence is a saved location that triggers an action when you're there, e.g. when you get home the phone detects it and tells DS photo to upload new photos and videos.

The two applications use different folders in your 'home' folder so they will upload your phone's photos and videos to a different location:

• Moments is part of the new Drive package and its main folder is:
  • home / Drive / Moments
• Photo Station has your personal folder here:
  • home / photo (and you will need to make a private album folder)

What to do? Moments is the simpler application to use for 'snappers', so long as you remember to open the iOS app every so often to get the new photos uploaded.

If you really need a map view of where photos were taken then Photo Station is the one to use. If the minor battery drain of the GPS to get automated uploads is OK then that's a useful feature.

Do this...

I suggest using Moments, it's simpler, does a lot for little effort, and both the web and iOS apps are nicer than Photo Station.

If you won't open the Moments iOS app very often then using DS photo with a geo-fence trigger will guarantee that videos are backed up: just run Photo Station (personal) once to make the home / photo folder.

(Remember that you'll probably still have iCloud uploading photos too.)

All our Moments folders are automatically backed up to secure Synology C2 Cloud Backup storage, in case the home system fails ... and both its home backups do too.

Getting started

Within the home / Drive / Moments folder there will be some folders created by Moments when you upload from your phone and the web app, these are: Mobile and Web. Inside will be folders for each device you upload.

To have all your photo library(ies) available from the web and iOS app you'll need to import them. I suggest creating a new folder within Moments for each library and then it's just a matter of connecting your Mac/PC to the Synology NAS and uploading them. This is easier and quicker to do at home using local network connections.

Once the files have been uploaded the NAS can take quite some time to process them, so be patient.

Ok thanks this is great . I will try these option and see which is best for us appreciate the feed back Fredbert.

 

[Hosaltezza]

Hi @Hosaltezza

Congratulations on your purchase

There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Assuming that your NAS is already running and accessible locally on the network in a mirrored disk configuration, and if all you need is internal access (through your LAN), I think you’re pretty much ready.

You can take a look at Synology’s Moments and Photo Station. These are two packages that deal with photos and can be installed from Synology’s package center. Here’s a comparison of the two.

Are these all iPhone photos or do you have a camera (SD card) too (RAW photos)? USB copy is good for quickly backing up SD cards.

If you don’t care about showing the photos you backup and you just want a backup (like I do), then you might use a paid app like PhtoSync for your iPhones for that (I use it and like it).

If you want external access to your NAS then there‘re two options. QuickConnect and DDNS.

You’ll need to think about your backup strategy too. That is backing up the NAS.

Maybe if you share more details of your grand scheme for the new DS, we can offer more tailored suggestions that can fit into the bigger picture

So we use iPhones i wanna be able to back them up automatically (especially my wife’s ) she has tons of videos and pictures. I shot with DSLR Raw photos and use Lightroom to edit and store my pictures on a external ssd drive . I would like to have those picture backed up on the synology and use a raid . I also would like to share some of the photo I choose to share . Thanks for the help you guys are awesome .

 

[fredbert]

There's nothing to stop you using both Photo Station and Moments, and mobile apps. I still have DS photo doing a backup of my iPhone camera roll as well as Moments doing it too (when I launch iOS Moments app). The personal locations are different folders of these packages, with only the shared folder in Moments using the /photos shared folder that Photo Station uses for their respective shared libraries.

You don't say if you are using Mac or Windows that you want to backup from. If Mac then my method is to run a scheduled task with Carbon Copy Cloner that keeps a cloned copy on the NAS but using the SafetyNet feature to keep [accidently] deleted items. There are other options to just accrue files in the backup.

 

[Hosaltezza]

There's nothing to stop you using both Photo Station and Moments, and mobile apps. I still have DS photo doing a backup of my iPhone camera roll as well as Moments doing it too (when I launch iOS Moments app). The personal locations are different folders of these packages, with only the shared folder in Moments using the /photos shared folder that Photo Station uses for their respective shared libraries.

You don't say if you are using Mac or Windows that you want to backup from. If Mac then my method is to run a scheduled task with Carbon Copy Cloner that keeps a cloned copy on the NAS but using the SafetyNet feature to keep [accidently] deleted items. There are other options to just accrue files in the backup.

sorry im using a Imac i just wanna back up my photos that are on the imac to the synology i use lightroom to edit my raw photos i take . What should i install on my imac for this ?

 

[Rusty]

i use lightroom to edit my raw photos i take . What should i install on my imac for this

If the photos are not saved inside Photos app on macOS then you could use the Drive app on your Mac and Driver server on your NAS to keep both sides in sync. Also you can use it to do a one way sync as well. This way you can have a transparent transfer from your mac side to your NAS side.

 

[fredbert]

If you install Synology Drive Server (Package Center) you can then install Synology Drive Client on your iMac. You want to avoid the older Cloud Station versions of this as the client apps on Mac are 32-bit.

Drive Client includes a Dropbox like folder syncing between the NAS and your Mac and, more interesting for you, Backup of folders on the Mac to the NAS.

 

[WST16]

So we use iPhones i wanna be able to back them up automatically (especially my wife’s ) she has tons of videos and pictures. I shot with DSLR Raw photos and use Lightroom to edit and store my pictures on a external ssd drive . I would like to have those picture backed up on the synology and use a raid . I also would like to share some of the photo I choose to share . Thanks for the help you guys are awesome .

I’m a hobbyist and to go out and shoot I need to be alone and in a good mood (rare for both)
So I don’t generate a lot of photos to manage. I shoot RAW, edit on my iMac and upload the finished edits to my DS manually at this time for safe keeping.
If you have a lot of photos to process, you might want to check Drive as the guys mentioned. Maybe try it first, have a feel for it and then come up with the right workflow from your SSD to processing on the iMac and finally making sure that the edited photos are on the NAS for backup and sharing.

 

[Hosaltezza]

I’m a hobbyist and to go out and shoot I need to be alone and in a good mood (rare for both)
So I don’t generate a lot of photos to manage. I shoot RAW, edit on my iMac and upload the finished edits to my DS manually at this time for safe keeping.
If you have a lot of photos to process, you might want to check Drive as the guys mentioned. Maybe try it first, have a feel for it and then come up with the right workflow from your SSD to processing on the iMac and finally making sure that the edited photos are on the NAS for backup and sharing.

Cool you guys have giving me a lot of good info going to try them and see what work flow works for me .

 

[jeyare]

good job Gents!

 

[Hosaltezza]

Ok so I started with the phones because that doesn’t have as many pictures as I have photo raw images or so I thought anyway. I downloaded the moments app to my phone and the ds photo app to my wife’s phone because it will do everything thing for her automatically once she comes home and is on the WiFi . Is there a way to speed up the uploads I have gigibit speed at home wirelessly your looking at about 400 to 500 upload speed ?

 

[fredbert]

Is there a way to speed up the uploads I have gigibit speed at home wirelessly your looking at about 400 to 500 upload speed ?

The speed is partly the upload but also partly due to indexing and processing the file for inclusion into the two app libraries. Moments is particularly heavy on the processing when analysing the various types of tagging and face recognition.

You could connect the phones to the Mac with USB and use Image Capture to copy off the photos. Then copy these photos to a folder on the NAS ... any folder in your personal Moments folder will do. For Photo Station I messed with it yday and found it needed to create the folder in ..../photo itslef when creating an Album. If your wife has already got a folder for the backup then copy from Mac into that.

Before doing this you should stop the current backups and when the photos have been copied in then start them but select to only backup new items from now.

 

[WST16]

Also make sure you’re connected to 5 GHz band and near you access point, at least for the initial upload where it’s going to go through all the photos.

 

[WST16]

Forgot to say, for the iMac, it’s best to be wired to the switch.

 

[Shadow]

I want that DS718+ ...

 

[WST16]

I want that DS718+ ...

Just noticed. We have exactly the same DiskStations
I want a DS120j for remote backup (I mean since we’re asking here)