Disk Station Manager 5.0 - What's New

Disk Station Manager (DSM) is a Linux-based operating system Synology developed exclusively for their NAS servers. It offers an intuitive, windowed interface with high functionality and is easy to use, even by inexperienced users. The most recent version of DSM, 5.0 offers many features, upgrades, and functions which we will briefly mention in the following paragraphs.


The user interface is new and had its visual design revamped completely to improve its usability. It now comes with support for touch screens should you want to use it via a tablet or smartphone, and high-resolution images are readily displayed when the interface is launched on devices that support ultra-HD resolutions. Counters like in Apple's iOS appear on top of app icons, and the login page now even features a local weather forecast.


Regarding the QuickConnect function we already mentioned, it now supports DSM, Photo Station, Audio Station, Surveillance Station, Download Station, Video Station, File Station, and nearly all mobile apps. Only Web and Mail station are not supported by QuickConnect.


Backup and Replication now comes with the ability to backup multiple configurations for local backups or for backups to another DiskStation NAS, and there is an overview that displays scheduled and completed backup tasks. You should note the fact that data and configuration backups created in DSM 5.0 can only be restored if the same firmware as for the backup is installed.


The Control Panel features a new layout that has been redesigned for better navigation through and organization of all available functions and settings. The Service list now displays firewall and port-forwarding-related settings, and VPN client settings have been moved into the Network > Network Interface menu.


All access permissions for shared folders are based on Windows ACL (Access Control Lists), which provides you with access to more permissions beyond the norm (Read Only, Read/Write, and No Access). Note that shared folders of photo and surveillance apps and shares on external storage devices or volumes with the .ext3 file system cannot use Windows ACL.


The Storage Manager features a new overview display that tracks overall disk and volume health, HDD utilization, and volume and iSCSI LUN usage. The information on disk health includes both the current states and a history log of all HDDs. SSD cache is supported, and two identical SSDs can be combined to create a RAID 1 read-write cache to enhance a volume's performance.


Package Center now includes an auto-update feature, which allows packages to be updated without the user's intervention, a handy feature. Syslog Server and System Logs have now been integrated into Log Center, and tickets can now directly be sent to Synology via Support Center. Support Center also allows for remote access and log generation, two features that will allow Synology's techs to remotely diagnose your NAS should anything go wrong.


File Station allows you to create file sharing links you can share with your Google+ and Facebook friends. Those who receive the link will be asked to use their credentials for those social networking sites to access such shared files. DSM 5.0 now also comes with a text editor should you want to edit plain text files directly in DSM.


DSM Help allows you to peruse online help files, which also ensures that the documentation you look at is up to date. The version of PHP Web Station utilizes has also been upgraded to 5.5, and Synology says the performance with Apache MPM (Multi-Processing Modules) worker to have been improved as well.


The by default indexed folders, photo, video, and audio, can now be de-flagged as indexed folders via the Media Library, and the media types to be indexed in each default folder can now be changed.


The networking section now also supports load balancing and failover should you have a Synology NAS with more than one Ethernet port for LACP. Synology's techs also improved iSCSI and AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) with DSM 5.0, and DSM now supports SPDY v3.0 for a better response with HTTPS connections. The data you use the least is also compressed to improve NAS performance and responsiveness under heavy load.


DSM 5.0 now allows you to connect up to two USB Wi-Fi adapters in its Wi-Fi section, so you could opt to share an Internet connection over both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz range. You also have the ability to bridge your wired connection over Wi-Fi hotspots to extend Wi-Fi coverage, and the existing local network and the Wi-Fi hostpots that are hosted over DiskStation can now be unified.

The Snapshot Manager plugin, available to vSphere and Windows Server environments, allows you to create application-specific snapshots in DSM, and the maximum number of supported IP cameras in Surveillance Station has been increased.

Synology introduced many changes with DSM 5.0, but the company has also introduced several new mobile applications that support their products. Clickthis link for a full list of all aforementioned changes and the DSM 5.0 change log.