Why not to upgrade to DSM7

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Why not to upgrade to DSM7

The new Synology Photos is a downgrade from Phot Station in my opinion.
So, if you are a long time Photo Station user, stay away for now. Some of my findings after 2 days of playing around with DSM7.

System. Although I have 1.8TB of nvme cache and 16G of RAM the GUI seems to be more laggy. I did not really saw any new features. Login Portal is pretty interesting though.

Now, for the real issue that made me go back to 6.2.

I am a long time user of Photo Station and I really can't understand how so many features of Photo Station were stripped from it on the new Synology Photos.

Only played around with it for 2 days now, as I did (unfortunately) the upgrade to DSM7 :
1. there is no option to have granular folder permissions.
2. Automatic rotation of photos based on the subject's posture is not working anymore.
3. No more "Rotate +/- 90 degrees". You need to do a full 270 in some cases.
4. Sharing a folder does not automatically share its sub-folders (Like if you have a structure like Vacation>then couple of sub-folders Day1 Day2 Day3.Trip, etc). Sharing the link you get from top folder Vacation will not show what you have in Day1 Day2 etc.
5. Sharing links are prone to harvesting as they are formated like https:\\<fqdn>...SYNO.Foto.AppInstance#/shared_space/folder/12. This way you can be harvested by only changing the number after folder/. Photo Station had randomized strings URLs generated.
6. ALL and all this really looks like a step back from Photo Station. I'm really opened to new things, but Synololgy Photos looks to be still beta.
7. I used Photo Station for years in order to share memories with my family and close friends. Really wish you reconsider and release PhotoStation on DSM7 as well.

Just noticed I almost use twice the space for the SAME photos with Synology Photos.
Looks like whatever Syno Photos is doing, is doubling the space required for a single file.
Here, an example for a MPG file

root@coreVAULT-1:/volume1/photo/2006/05_Arcanbi# ls -alh MOV04755.MPG
----------+ 1 mitzone users 71M Jan 30 2011 MOV04755.MPG

And the eaDir content for that MPG file

root@coreVAULT-1:/volume1/photo/2006/05_Arcani# ls -alh \@eaDir/MOV04755.MPG
total 128M
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 root root 310 Jul 1 02:43 .
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 root root 21K Jul 1 14:28 ..
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 root root 40 Jul 1 02:43 @eaDir
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 root root 476 Jul 1 02:41 SYNOINDEX_MEDIA_INFO
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 root root 79 Jul 1 02:41 SYNOINDEX_VIDEO_METADATA
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 64M Jul 1 02:43 SYNOPHOTO_FILM_M.mov
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 64M Jul 1 02:43 SYNOPHOTO_FILM_M.mp4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4.0K Jul 1 02:42 SYNOPHOTO_THUMB_M.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.6K Jul 1 02:42 SYNOPHOTO_THUMB_SM.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20K Jul 1 02:42 SYNOPHOTO_THUMB_XL.jpg


Cmmon' Syno. What are you guys smoking? Going back to DSM6 for me. Can't live with Synology Photos.
 
In addition, in an effort to be as close as possible to the masses of unskilled users, Synology has created something abundant that is easy to use for single click driven users.

Unfortunately, they don't seem to have learned from Docker-based virtualisation success (which also has its limits). It is a pity that they have not moved further in this level. A good idea from TrueNAS in the form of lightweight virtualisation called Jail could solve this problem. They can live side by side. Then installation of powerful photo management product as Piwigo, include all of the add-ons (Achilles tendon of the Docker) that would be the way for skilled users.
But this was not in the plane from Syno side, so routing has been set. Masses support.

Synology does a lot of things really well. However, this does not mean that they do everything well. Therefore, they should keep this in mind when creating an investment budget.
 
A lot of packages not supported anymore. However it is not fully clear to me.

Is the unsupported Node.js 0.12 the same as Node.js v12 which I have installed, or not? If not, I assume Node.js v12 remains being supported?
 
A lot of packages not supported anymore. However it is not fully clear to me.

Is the unsupported Node.js 0.12 the same as Node.js v12 which I have installed, or not? If not, I assume Node.js v12 remains being supported?
These are the ones that will be supported, by Synology.

On the other hand, type C categories are not supported. More info on the link: 3rd-party package support in DSM 7

Node v8 is also supported. v12 is supported as well, or better to consider that it will not be supported in the future.

1625220458355.png
 
Wow, big disappointment hearing about photos. Like another poster said, this was one of the main things I’ve been waiting on. Guess I’ll stay where I’m at till better reviews come along.
 
For those with NAS that support VMM then you can run vDSM 6 in that and then Photo Station*. The downside is that and tagging and indexing tasks are needed will be best served with a healthy allocation of CPU cores and RAM, at the detriment to your new non-VMM DSM 7.

I've not used Photo Station much for a long time: what's its resource usage like normally?


There is also the other scenario if you have multiple NAS: don't update them all.

*Probably not so much Moments as is so very similar to new Photos.
 
Photos seems to have been released not even half baked certainly, like they "bit more than they can chew" when they commited to replace 2 apps with very different use targets with a new one.

Many companies do this for many reasons... from getting rid of technical debt to simply getting users to keep paying.

The first example that comes to my mind is apple with final cut pro x which launched with a severe lack of features than its predecessor had, and their users were really really mad about it. But then they started adding back those features or new ones that replaced (improved?) older workflows and people mostly just adapted.

I think the real question here is what is synology's end game, will they improve on the product or will they just perform some kind of upkeep on what they have released?

I haven't seen any communication from them stating that they will... maybe I missed it
 
I haven't seen any communication from them stating that they will... maybe I missed it
Atm it is what it is. The truth is that Syno is known to start with half-baked apps/services and then updates them along the way. A large sum of new features comes via their "feature request line", so maybe the same will be in this case.
 
Thanks for the comments, folks. Fortunately, it seems, I don't really use photos or third party apps. The only exceptions being Logitech Media Server and Pi-hole and I have those running under Docker. I'll probably have a go at the weekend.
 
Docker could be a concern...I can confirm that on my 1815+ I am on DSM 7 and I've been able to create a Pi-Hole server but can't seem to log into the admin console upon Portainer container creation. Have no idea if this is related to DSM 7, or updated Docker/Portainer - or perhaps completely non related.
 
You've got more experience with Docker than I do. What I have seen that if I don't set the WEBPASSWORD environment variable in Portainer constainer setup before deploying, the temp admin password does not work (retrieved from the log files). If I set the variable and password, it also does not work. Not sure why.
 
I am new to the nas universe... And I was about to ask a similar question, pros/cons of dsm7 vs dsm6. I have yet to really see any serious pros of dsm7 (unless I'm missing them?) the majority of posts from around the internet seem to circle around what's broken, not working the same way as before and the overwhelming dislike of photos in dsm7. Seems like most people like the dsm6 photostation better.

Stupid question, is there no way to side load photostation on dsm7? (again, new guy here so be kind)
 
I know that many users are prone to knee-jerk reactions about any software update. I'm a software engineer and I - for one - hated the Big Sur update to macOS enough to ALMOST not buy an M1 MacBook Pro. The only reason I did was my 2013 MBP basically died. So, I upgraded to the new M1 MBP. It came with Big Sur. I hate it. I hate every iOS-ism about it. But I did it - cos I had to.
The difference? I don't HAVE to update to DSM7 right now. I don't love DSM6, but I am used to it. And I just bought my DS1520+ last month and don't want to re-learn things I am still not sure about in DSM6. In short, I won't upgrade yet cos I want to know what I'm losing (or gaining) in the upgrade.
So, count me as a "wait for now".

Having said all that, I just sent the Drobo 5c (that I replaced with my DS1520+) to my friend (who may not be a friend much longer when he notices how hot it runs and how slow it is)...so I just donated to this board cos I have a feeling I'm gonna be needing the "lounge" soon - if for nothing else than to find new friends. 😂
 

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