Synology Cloud Station Client Mac Download

Synology Cloud Station Client Mac Download Average ratng: 9,9/10 9092 votes

Synology Web Assistant, Cloud Station Drive, Cloud Station Backup, Cloud Sync Decryption Tool, Surveillance Station Client, Evidence Integrity Authenticator, Photo Station Uploader, Snapshot Manager for VMware, Snapshot Manager for Windows, NFS Plug-in for VMware VAAI Supported clients Windows 7 onwards, Mac OS X® 10.10 onwards. In this scenario, we choose “client” or the “M drive” to sync with Cloud Station Drive. – Download Cloud Station Drive. Once download, run the install and follow the pics below. It is important to know before getting start how you authenticate to your Synology NAS. Please grab those credentials before proceeding. Synology free download - Synology Download Redirector, Synology Chat, Synology Drive, and many more programs. The maximum number of hosted files refers to the maximum number of files that can be indexed and hosted by the Cloud Station Server service. RAM expansion was not used during testing. Non-encrypted shared folders were used during the aforementioned testing. Download Station; Download Station: Maximum Concurrent Download Tasks: 80.

Everyone likes the concept of sharing files and folders from their computer and phone on the go. Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive are personal cloud storage products that have a common thread where they are hosted by a major tech company, costly in that these companies shake you down every time reach their free storage threshold, and you are more likely to be pushed in a direction of using products that meant for their ecosystem only. Synology makes a suite of software and hardware products for those who want more control out of storage.

  1. Enjoy hundreds of amazing Synology NAS packages designed for your unique needs: backup, business, multimedia, collaboration, surveillance & more. Cloud Station ShareSync - Add-on Packages Synology.
  2. Cloud Station is a file sharing service that allows your Synology NAS to become a file sync center to sync files between multiple client computers. With the Cloud Station application installed on your computers, you can simply drop your office file to a folder on your office computer, and then open the same file automatically synced to your laptop.

Additional Resources:

  • Accessing a Synology remotely so you can work from home
    • A best practice guide for setting up remote access for under 10 user enviroments.
      • Note: It does not include steps for VPN or port forwarding

We have a new & improved version of this blog post!!

Accessing a Synology remotely so you can work from home

    • A best practice guide for setting up remote access for under 10 user enviroments.

The new post gets less into the weeds and provides a lot more links for a cleaner version of explaining a Cloudstation server and client setup. For more phone app details, continue reading here.

Synology Cloud Station DS Cloud Setup for iPHone

It is important to know the following settings for illustration 1 and illustration 2.

  • The Above Illustration 1
    • The Synology name. What are you connecting to?
      • DDNS – name.synology.me
      • QuickConnect – http://quickconnect.to/YourID
      • FQDN – diskstation.domainname.com
    • User Name
      • Example User Name created in Synology DSM – Fernado
      • Password
    • Enable SSL
      • Enabling SSL allows for secured connection

ProTip! Use Keepass for storing all related information regarding your Synology user name credentials, server name, and setup notes.

  • The Above Illustration 2
    • Shared Folders
      • Shares are enabled for Cloudstation sync access via Cloudstation Server
        • Defer to your IT guy or whoever set the Synology Diskstation on what share folders to sync.

Note: Some shares may contain a substantial amount of data. Be careful what you sync. By default, data will sync via WiFi connection only.

Second Phase

What data to sync?

  • The Above Illustration 1
      • I highly advise to perform “download only” option.
        • Basically, this options makes the data on your phone read only and the data sync from your computer or Synology DSM.
  • The Above Illustration 2
    • Syncsub Folders
      • enable subfolders and all formats

Understanding Shares and Your Workflow

You or your organization must have a Synology DiskStation or their higher end, line of NAS products to store your data on for Cloudstation to work. Ultimately, you want your DiskStation customized to the way you work.

DiskStation Shares & Cloudstation Setup

Homes – Home drives shares are enabled for each user created by default. They are essential for storing personal photos, backups, and Synology Drive related data.

Video – Share is created when you enable the Synology Video Station package

Work – Share can be created manually by you and you provide your user permissions or group permissions to the share. Best practice is apply group permissions.

PC – Desktop Setup

  • Local Disk (C:)
    Data that resides on your local computer’s hard drive. Use Synology Cloud Station Backup to backup data that is stored here.
  • Home
    This is your personal drive. Personal data like old Outlook PSTs, photos, and docs should be placed here. Cloud Station Drive data is also stashed here depending on how you configured the app.
  • Video
    Communal video data should be stashed here. Again, this is how I customized by Synology. Your communal data may differ
  • Work
    This is a vague term for work related data that everyone in you business can collaborate on shared documents and data. This folder will be used later to sync with CloudStation Drive.

Network Info Sheet – Mapped Drives

Note: The desktop shares have to be added manually to your desktop unless you create scrips, etc for this to happen automatically. This manual add of the shares is called mapping the drive.

Below is how we break down shares and present them to clients when they are deciding what individuals should have permissions to specific network shares for file servers in both regions.

Mapped DrivesDescriptionAuthenticationMapped Drives
SERVERSDhomeHPersonal Home DriveSERVERSDuser_nameSERVERNYhomeH
SERVERSDworkwSync files and folder between NY and SD; and Cloud Station DriveSERVERNYworkS
SERVERSDvideovSERVER dataSERVERNYgeneralO
SERVERSDclientMClient dataSERVERNYclientM
SERVERSDSales S Sales Data

Note: Analyze illustration above and skip below the PC setup for CloudStation Drive if you have a Mac once you have read the summary of the CloudStation Drive software can potentially help you on the go.

Synology Cloud Station Drive Summary

The Cloud Station Drive takes one of these shares and makes it accessible on your computer and mobile phone when you are on the go. There’s no more tunneling into the network via VPN or accessing a website remotely to download your work and later uploading an updated copy. And finally, your data is no longer constrained by the limitations of Google Drive, DropBox, and or Microsoft OneDrive.

Cloudstation Drive Setup for Mac

The first step for setting Cloudstation Drive for Mac is to download and the dmg file.

You will now see a cloud icon on the top of the screen called “the menu bar”. Go hard and click on it if a setup window for CloudStation Drive does not pop up.

Cloud Station Drive Setup Screen

We use DDNS FQDN “SynologyUnitName.Synology.me” to find our Synology unit on the interwebs. Proceed with entering the DDNS name followed by your user name and password.

In our scenario, we are using DDNS not QuickConnect. QuickConnect is less secure. Click “No” to proceed.

At this time, we do not have a certificate. While this could potentially create a man in the middle attack, the likelihood of that happening is incredibly small. Make sure SSL is enabled and click “proceed anyway” to bypass the certificate issues.

This is where things get somewhat tricky. There are default sections or locations to be synced that can edited:

  • Synology.me
    • /home/CloudStation/Drive à Change the Synology share to the department share you are looking for. In this example it is: Synology.me
      • Synology.me /Sales
    • MacBook-Pro
      • /users/UserName/CloudStation à Change to a more ideal location to find the synced folders on your Mac
        • /users/UserName/Documents (as illustrated below)

Edit first section to “Sales” share

After a couple edits, the CloudStation Drive should look like the illustration below…

Make sure you add the “CloudStation” synced folder to “Favorites” for easy accessibility.

Cloud Drive Setup for the PC

In this scenario, we choose “client” or the “M drive” to sync with Cloud Station Drive.

Get Going! – Download Cloud Station Drive

Once download, run the install and follow the pics below. It is important to know before getting start how you authenticate to your Synology NAS. Please grab those credentials before proceeding. The typical DDNS used for server connection ends in Synology.me

DDNS: xxxxx.synology.me

Credentials: UserNamePassword (User name is usually first name)

Don’t select QuickConnect unless you absolutely have to. It is not as secure as the other methods for authenticating with the Synology.

Say no to QuickConnect

This may be an issue if you don’t have an SSL cert. In my case, we do not have an SSL certificate. So click “proceed anyway” to co

The Selected folder on your PC and NAS will be Syncronized.

Here’s the interesting part. There are two sections to edit from.

  • I would leave the bottom one as the default location and it will end up as an additional folder to your window library and a shortcut will be placed on your desktop for accessing the synced data.
  • Referring back to what share we chose to sync, we chose “client” and you select the top section to edit and select “client” to sync. Alternately, we could have chosen something like your home drive. In that case, we select “CloudStation (home)”

Select Share to Sync

Cloud Station Drive Synology Download

Select “Finish” once complete and add “cloudstation” under c:usersusername to “quick access” when in File Explore of Windows.

Adding additional Shares to Sync

There’s a little unfortunate and undesirable affect when adding more than one CloudStation Drive “Sync Task” to the application. Quick Access pins look the same as you add more tasks as displayed on the pic to right. You will not be able to change the name of the folders as this will break the file path and the sync will fail. I would recommend creating the sync tasks from cloud station drive and unticking “create an empty CloudStation folder”. By doing this the folder will retain the original folder name you will no longer need to rename it. Follow the steps below to proceed:

  1. Select Cloudstation Drive application from the system tray or under program filessynology
  2. Click “create” and connect to the existing Synology NAS or enter the credentials like in the initial the setup documented up top.
  3. Click the Synology to edit and share to sync

Select Share to Sync

4. Then select the computer to edit. Reference the above picture of the “E5570-PC”. Edit your computer

5. Uncheck “create an empty CloudStation folder” like reference below. Make sure you create an appropriate folder name usually under Documents or Desktop to sync the task to as displayed in the photo on the right and find “task” or whatever you named it to sync to it. The picture on the left we found the path for the “sync test” folder we created. Basically, name it whatever you want as long as it make sense for when you pin it for Quick Access.

6. Pin sync folder to Quick Access

Synology Cloud Station Client Mac Download Torrent

Cloud Station Drive Troubleshooting

The unfortunate side of Cloud Station Drive is when it breaks. Sometimes the Cloud Station agent on users workstation stops syncing for no apparent reason. You have to “delete tasks” and recreate them but I highly recommend documenting the location of the workstation’s local path Cloud Station syncs from before proceeding. Also, two way syncing will overwrite some data that’s newer. You will have to figure out the file conflicts sooner than later.

My documented sync paths…

c:usersUser_Namecloudstation (default)
c:usersUser_Namedocumentsoperations-othertasks
c:usersUser_Namedocumentssales – marketing

Need to report issues to Synology Support? Try proving the daemon log…

  • Windows: C:Users<username>AppDataLocalSynologyDrivelog
    • Windows XP, C:Documents and Settings<user_name>Local SettingsApplication DataSynologyDrivelog
    • W10, C:UsersUser_NameAppDataLocalSynologyDrivelog
  • Mac: /Users/<user_name>/.SynologyDrive/log
  • Linux: $HOME/.SynologyDrive/log

Synology Cloud Station Mobile App Support – DS Cloud

Android Setup

Synology Cloud Station Client Download

Step 1) Login Screen

Step 4 ) Download Only
*** Very Important Step

Synology Cloud Station Client Mac Download Windows 10

Let us know if you are still struggling with the setup for the Synology Cloud Station. We provide remote and on-site support for all NAS products.

BitTorrent Sync, Dropbox, Amazon Cloud, Google Drive — There's no shortage of ways I can store files on the Internet. I've been a dedicated Dropbox user for many years and continue to pay for their 'Pro' consumer product. The announcement of a new Amazon unlimited storage option is compelling but the lack of options for access as well as limited app support will likely keep me using Dropbox.

But, I find myself using my own hosted Cloud Station on my Synology NAS more often as my way of getting files moved between devices.1 The sync application for the Mac works well and the DS Cloud iOS app is very functional. Both are fast for me, but whatt I really like is that the files are only ever on devices under my physical control.2

Cloud Station

The Cloud Station service runs on the Synology as a free user installed application. It's configured with a Synology 'QuickConnect ID' (which uses Synology's free DDNS service) to make connecting other devices to the service easy. It functions a bit like Dropbox. You point it at some directories on the Synology and it looks for changes and notifies clients when they need to get a new file. In some ways, it's more powerful than Dropbox.

You can setup access through Synology permissions so that different users have different access. Why would this be useful? Because you can share a Synology Cloud Station with another Synology user. Everything they add to their shared folder will automatically be synced between NAS devices. And this can all be segregated based on permissions so that private content stays private.

Cloud Station provides optional sync profiles for configuring what type of content can be kept in sync. If you don't want your friend's collection of animated GIFs, then setup a profile to exclude syncing files with the .gif extension.

Similar to Dropbox Pro, Cloud Station provides optional versioning of the synced files. This is a basic function of the Synology OS and it's extended to the Cloud Station applications on other devices. Versions can be restored or downloaded as a new file.

Other Synology owners can sync through my Cloud Station using the companion Cloud Sync service on their own NAS. Setup is pretty easy but managing the permissions can be a bit confusing if you have no experience with these options.

Once configured, every file added, deleted or changed on either end of the Cloud Station is automatically synced between the two NAS devices. In my testing, the reliability and performance is fairly stable and mostly dependent on how reliable the two NAS Internet connections are. The biggest issue I encountered was with syncing very large collections of files (tens of thousands). The syncing service would eventually die or hang and require a restart of the NAS to fix it. There were no issues with 'normal' sized syncs are syncing multi Gigabyte files.

All of this is available through the Synology web interface, which means I can add or delete files from almost any computer with an Internet connection and changes sync everywhere.

Cloud Sync for Mac

The NAS to NAS syncing is nice but it's the Mac syncing client that starts to show off the real power behind Cloud Station. The client application is downloaded directly from the Synology NAS interface or from the Synology download page. Once installed, it's a simple matter of giving it a Cloud Station ID and telling it which local directory to use for syncing on the Mac. From there, it behaves much like Dropbox.3

Adding, deleting, or changing files on the Mac causes them to sync to the Synology. Subtle overlays are displayed on the file icons to indicate their current sync status.

Cloud Station also adds a new contextual menu for files to OS X. Right click to access file versions or to create a Synology sharing link. Synology share links use a short gofile.me (another Synology service) URL but these simply redirect to your own NAS through the magic of Synology DDNS and do not reside on a hosted service.4

There's also selective syncing for subfolders. Individual folders can be disabled for syncing to the Synology NAS and all other connected devices.

Following the Dropbox design, which is fine with me, Cloud Sync runs as a menu bar application to indicate current syncing status and lists recent file changes. The menu bar provides quick access to the local sync directory as well as the settings. As with the Synology Cloud Station app on the NAS, the Mac app has optional sync profiles to restrict file types.

The Synology design allows for a many-to-many configuration. Each Cloud Sync client can sync with many different Cloud Stations and each Cloud Station allows multiple clients. The services keep it all straight and log each device and transaction.

Unlike mounting a remote volume, Cloud Sync works perfectly offline. Files are accessible like normal and once the NAS connection is available again (through the local LAN or over the Internet) file syncing resumes and changes are updated.

How fast is it? It feels instant on my network. It feels faster than Dropbox.

DS Cloud for iOS

DS Cloud is the free Cloud Station client for iOS. As with the Mac app, DS Cloud provides access to multiple Synology Cloud Station servers. Files are kept in sync between the iOS app and the Cloud Station directory on the NAS. Cloud Station is also smart enough to provide controls for when syncing should occur. Geofence syncing is also a nice feature to just make sure I'm always up to date when I arrive at home or work. It always drove me nuts to be required to open the Dropbox iOS app so that it would know to sync my files. DS Cloud is not a step backward.

The main reason to use DS Cloud over the similar DS File for iOS is that DS Cloud works offline. Files in DS Cloud are available for editing and sharing regardless of connectivity. The only dependency on the Synology NAS is for syncing across devices. This provides a way to capture to my iPhone anytime or place and only worry about syncing when I'm back on a network connection.5

Synology Cloud Station Backup Client

Working with files is surprisingly easy in DS Cloud. It's very simple to get files out using familiar sharing methods in iOS 8. While any file type is available in DS Cloud, there's enhanced support for images, video and PDFs. All can be previewed directly in DS Cloud. Videos can be played, images viewed at full resolution and there's pretty good PDF annotation and viewing built right in. All without ever leaving DS Cloud.6

Perhaps one of the best features of DS Cloud is its integration with other document providers in iOS 8. Of course, it supports receiving files from other apps through sharing extensions, but I can also pull files directly from any number of other file sources, like Dropbox or iCloud. One of the greatest integrations is with Transmit for iOS which lets me grab files from remote SFTP servers and bring them into DS Cloud without jumping between apps.

Conclusion

There are always going to be questions of performance. Self-hosting has benefits but it also means the buck stops with you. I have terrific performance on my Synology 1815+. But I've also optimized my setup and I have FiOS at my home. Your home network connections are likely to be the primary bottlenecks, so be warned: You only have yourself and your cable provider to blame.

I like Cloud Sync because it means my files are secured in ways that are less opaque. When Slack had their recent security breach, I enabled two factor authentication on all of my accounts. During the process, they create 10 recovery keys. I wanted to snap a photo of these keys and store them somewhere I could trust. So, I opened DS Cloud and snapped photos of each account 2FA page. The files sync to my NAS and Mac within a second and never exist on any cloud service.

Synology Drive Client Download

I don't have a particular security concern with Dropbox but I figure, why not use something I control if it's just as good in nearly every respect.

Synology Cloud Station Client Mac Download Mac

  1. That's an affiliate link for the Synology unit I use. It's like Sloth from Goonies. It's a beast but I love it so much. ↩

  2. Sure, someone could argue that the bits are streaming through servers all around the world as they travel from my phone to my Synology. There's nothing I can possibly afford to do about that. ↩

  3. There are Cloud Sync clients for Mac, Windows, Ubuntu and Fedora. I've only used the Mac client. ↩

  4. of course there is a dependency on making your NAS available outside of your home firewall. Files must be accessible over the Internet if you expect to share them that way. ↩

  5. I mean network in the general sense. DS Cloud works on WiFi, LTE, or 3G. But even in this modern utopia of constant technology, there are times I don't have an internet connection. ↩

  6. I don't know where that Monkey-Chicken photo comes from. It passed through my Twitter stream and I had to have it. Thank you, whoever created this. Your life is deservedly more interesting than mine. ↩