Less than 24 hours ago, on October 27, 2022, the annual Synology event recounting all new things coming to Synology in the following months took place. A pleasant surprise was the presence of officials from a few different Synology headquarters, each unveiling different pieces of Synology-related news. If you missed the video presentation, you can see it on the official Synology YouTube channel.
Synology CEO Derren Lu opened the presentation, followed by Katherine Chiang from the Taiwan office opening the conversation on the topic of Data Management. The conversation was continued by Lewis Sheng from the Taiwan office acting as Product Manager. We then had Shelina Hsieh, Product Manager for Synology’s Cloud solution, also from the Taiwan HQ, who went on to present some of the biggest innovations in Synology’s Cloud solution. Henning Wenzel from the Germany office introduced the next-generation file server and announced Synology’s scale-out objectives. The second section of the presentation, Data Protection, was presented by Travie Lytle from the US office, and focused on backup and restoration solutions for data protection. Infrastructure Security, the third topic of presentation, was brought to us by Cody Hall from the US office. Finally, we had Tony Chu from the Taiwan office continuing the conversation on user and device management solutions.
Before we continue, I would like to extend a warm thank you to everyone involved in creating the presentation and forwarding Synology solutions for us users to enjoy for at-home use and scaling our businesses. As per Derren’s statement, „2023 is going to be an important year for Synology”. Among all the exciting new developments presented, see below what are the ones that caught my interest and when to expect them.
Synology Cameras: BC500 and TC500. One of the biggest pieces of news unveiled at the Synology 2023 and Beyond event was Synology introducing their own Video Surveillance Cameras. Designed exclusively for Surveillance Station and fully compatible with their brand software, the new Synology Video Surveillance Cameras are easy to install and use, requiring only to be connected to your network and adopted through the Surveillance Station Wizard – „no pre-setup needed”. According to Synology, deployment of the cameras will be „the easiest of the whole industry”. The new Synology cameras will be called the 500 Series and will be available to consumers in the first half of 2023. In addition to BC500 and TC500, it was announced that new cameras are already in the works, and will be higher resolution and more specialized.
Synology Router: WRX560 Wi-Fi 6 mid-range router for home users. The new router will be available on November 2, 2022 for a price of $209. In the following weeks you can expect a review of the new WRX560 router here on mariushosting.
Synology Visual Station: VS750HD. The Synology VS750HD is a tiny, highly compact video display solution for monitoring centers. The new hardware will be available to consumers in the first half of 2023. With 75 channels, dual 4K HDMI output, H.264/H.265 support, KB/M support and NDAA and TAA compliant, it is another addition to Synology hardware solutions.
Note: If you are wondering about the new X23 NAS models, these haven’t been announced at the 2023 and Beyond event. They will certainly be out, but the release date hasn’t been announced yet. You will however be reading online about reviews of the X23 NAS models. Know that these reviews are not real reviews because the NAS is not out yet and you can’t review a piece of hardware that you haven’t put your hands on. As soon as the new NAS models are out, I will prepare a real review based on the actual product. On mariushosting I will stay professional all the way and only review products when I can actually see, use and test them.
Synology DSM 7.2 – Expected to come out in the first quarter of 2023. The new big DSM update will introduce features such as folder encryption and full-volume encryption, with 48% better performance over shared folder-based encryption. Synology announced they will be implementing enhancements to their DSM operating system that will allow sysadmins to encrypt entire volumes, to better protect data. All of the shared folders and LUNs in a volume can be encrypted together starting with DSM 7.2 – Coming to DSM 7.2 is SMB multichannel support which will leverage all available connections for increased transfer speeds and improved workflow.
WORM feature (Write Once Read Many) – WORM (Write Once Read Many) is a new feature implemented on DSM. WORM will allow for shared folders to be locked down for a predetermined period of time. WORM Compliance mode will prevent anyone, even the highest-level sysadmins from being able to modify or delete files for a set period of time via a secure, tamper-proof timer feature. You can also extend the duration of the protection. WORM Enterprise mode will allow only the primary system admin to bypass the protection put on files. To better protect against the disabling threat that is a ransomware attack, the new WORM feature coming to DSM will allow system admins to lock down whole folders and even volumes, preventing any changes or deletion of files by others, which can protect their content from ransomware attacks and subsequent data corruption and data loss.
Immutable locking will not allow any changes to be made to files, whereas appendable locking will only allow addition to the files, but not changes to existing files. There is also a grace period until the locking of files is implemented.
Synology Drive: Synology Drive will finally support on-demand file synchronization for macOS systems and native support for M1/M2 devices. The next drive update will support the automatic sign in to Synology Drive using AD credentials. Synology Drive will introduce a Remote Wipe feature for systems with the Drive client installed. Watermark support for files like PDFs and images will be implemented and features such as blocking downloading and collaborative file locking will be added.
Synology Office: Synology Office will enjoy improved file support for imported files, improved support for password-protected imported files, and improvements to revision mode.
Active Backup For Business: The macOS agent for Active Backup for Business comes out of Beta at the end of 2022. macOS users will enjoy the same level of protection and support as Windows users.
DS CAM app: DS CAM is the Synology App for mobile phones, Android and iOS. In the months to come DS CAM will receive upgrades for easier and more efficient Video Surveillance management.
Synology C2: Later in 2023, expanded monitoring will be added to Synology C2, offering a more complete view on files sent by other employees and the associated transfer settings.
Backup Cloud Tool: In 2023, Synology will be introducing Synology Backup Cloud which is a cloud-based management tool for Active Backup. The new Synology Backup Cloud will link together Active Backup with C2 Backup and provide a comprehensive suite of backup solutions. It is a centralized location for all backup tasks across various sites, departments and different clients. Synology Backup Cloud will roll out in multiple stages, not all at once. The platform will be finalized in early 2023 at which time new information will become available.
Active Insight: New Analytics to monitor login activity, file access activity, created file sharing tasks. Data is processed and alerts are issued signaling the need for action, all based on configurations of the system, both predefined and configurable.
C2 identity new features: passwordless authentication, adaptive 2FA, device biometrics authentication.
This post was updated on Wednesday / March 22nd, 2023 at 2:21 PM