Synology NAS920+ A great device for the computing community

Update Aug 2025

Comments by NASCompares about Synology choosing to limit HDDs to own brand drives only.

And Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/synology-could-bring-certified-drive-requirements-to-more-nas-devices/ 

The latest 2025 Devices require Synology branded drives ( made by Seagate with special firmware apparently)

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Update Nov 2024 A couple of articles for further reading

Ars Technica : “Clearly predatory”: Western Digital sparks panic, anger for age-shaming HDDs"

Wired : Zero-Click Flaw Exposes Potentially Millions of Popular Storage Devices to Attack

The SynologyPhotos application package comes preinstalled and enabled by default on Synology’s line of BeeStation storage devices but is also a popular application downloaded by users of its DiskStation storage systems ...

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Remember - digital data can both last forever and be gone in a milli-second. The difference is backups and reliable storage devices.

This is a great NAS from Synology,  a company with a solid reputation and great support organisation.

Storage devices are as important as the main PC in any computing environment that has grown to more than a couple of PCs and devices. Ease of use and reliability are key for on-going satisfaction.

You can move data four main ways between a Mac and the device :

• Up/down load using the File Station software accessed via a web browser,
• Mount a shared folder and use the finder,
• Mount a shared folder and use the command line in terminal.
• Use Time Machine for backups.

Some things I found out along the set up journey:

Use SMB and not AFP for modern Macs.

TimeMachine the mainstay of Mac based backups can be used with with NAS. Shared folders must have the "discoverable by Bonjour" over SMB set on for the shared folder.

When first setting up using bfs be sure to a put in all the drives that will be used.  I started with two drives then added two more but it took the device about 12 hours each to weave the later drives into the existing configuration. This is a result of having to redo the on-disk data redundancy layout for the added drives. 

Use the same size drives if possible - I have 4 * 7TB drives that because of the redundancy scheme this provides 21 TB of storage and 1 drive failure redundancy.  Use proper NAS drives available from WD or Toshiba for best longevity.

Adding 2 * 1TB cache M1 ssd sticks helps performance when the load ramps up but I do suspect that write through to disk happens. Use at least gigabit wired networking, not wifi, for moving larger amounts of data. I was getting reliably about 100Mbytes/second writing from a MacBook Pro with ssd drive over a wired connection.  TimeMachine is a bit slower but not by much. For best performance and ease of use, when copying large quantities of small files, bundle your data into large chunks using disk images made by Disk Manager application. 

I was stuck for a while getting "Not enough space to copy file." messages on both Mac systems that were using the device. After a very pleasant interaction with Synology technical support they found a quota setting on the user name was being correctly enforced. I had forgotten that I had put this user storage quota on early in the testing process.  The support case opened and closed in the same day.

The disk manager software on the NAS has many options and can be extended with extra software. The fine grained controls over users and data access are great. This model has a Celeron processor and I suspect that the virtual machine experience may not be great. However for long term NAS usage lower power consumption is preferred.  Best of all the device and software are activity supported by a mature company with a long track record.

Let's talk about the noise.  In a silent office you can hear the device but it's not unpleasant. Being quieter than a coffee machine or someone tapping on a mobile phone. I imagine the NAS as a holding place for data chipmunks so the gentle activity noise is reassuring.  Some extra sound dampening would be good though esp. when the drives are spinning up. The device drive activity is not predictable when using Time Machine or multiple shared folders. 

I get the feeling that I have only scratched the surface of the features of this device but I have been very impressed so far. Overall a great device with the reassurance of an active support organisation, a very  worthwhile addition to my computer community.

Battery power in case of mains failure can be added with a UPS. When the UPS has a USB connection the Synology device can be configured with the control Panel -> Hardware -> UPS to shutdown automatically when the battery gets low.

See the range of Synology NAS devices here.

Comparative review with other NAS devices here.

I like this box.

Garage project 2021 Pictures

Before and After 

Original shared driveway behind old garage.

This project was only possible with cooperation and agreement with the neighbours to the south. The old garage ( ------ outline on plan) forces the access route behind the garage, both properties sharing the driveway. The new garage is positioned further back allowing for a direct access at the front. This arrangement allowed for a larger garage and direct access rather than shared driveways to both properties. Some small land slices were legally swapped giving the neighbours a direct road frontage and new right of way. The legal process of swapping two small slices of land actually took longer than the whole garage build.

 

Over door roof support beam

The roof was built using upside down V rather than A frame rafters to create more interior space.

 Just in case a four poster lift is needed at any time in the future.

SuperToy has come home

LaTex the machine code of publication

 

IMHO:

LaTex was machine code of publication - the world moved on to wysiwyg only about 30 years ago. Any publisher that only takes submissions in that archaic language is being rather stoneage. Camera / publication ready copy can be created in so many easy to use tools that to insist on using an ancient relic just places unnecessary barriers to entry.

If that same publisher does not provide article templates just vaguely worded "guidelines" then you know you are dealing with a publishing dinosaur or paper generating mill that provides no value add - look elsewhere.

Sure LaTex was a good and relatively bug free system, used by many, but pushing authors to be typographical mark up compilers is like asking painters to be chemists and make their own colours.

More on corporate (and country scale) fraud

 Following on from an earlier review of two corporate fraud books this holiday season fraud reviews were taken to a higher level..... 

 

Listing gives : 

"A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND FORTUNE MAGAZINE.

The epic story of how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest financial heists in history.

In 2015, rumours began circulating that billions of dollars had been stolen from a Malaysian investment fund. The mastermind of the heist was twenty-seven-year-old Jho Low, a serial fabulist from an upper-middle-class Malaysian family, who had carefully built his reputation as a member of the jet-setting elite by arranging and financing elaborate parties for Wall Street bankers, celebrities, and even royalty.

With the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, Low stole billions of dollars, right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. He used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and bankroll Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street. 

Billion Dollar Whale reveals how this silver-tongued con man, a ‘modern Gatsby’, emerged from obscurity to pull off one of the most audacious financial heists the world has ever seen, and how the financial industry let him. It is a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world."

As of 2021 Jho Low is still on the run but the net tightens after his rather nice ship was impounded.

The Equanimity, a luxury yacht belonging to fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, was seized and brought to Malaysia in August 2018. It was later auctioned off [Lai Seng Sin/Reuters]

Covid-19 explained for bikers

When thinking about these strange times it can be helpful to relate what's going on to things we understand. Here is a Q&A for those of a biker persuasion.

Q: "Covid-19 is just another flu virus, why should I worry about that ?"

In the same way that most bikes have two wheels, an engine and handlebars they are not all the same. Outsiders just see a motorbike, we see a Harley, a Ducati, a Triumph etc. The internals matter, some bike are screaming two strokes and some big capacity four strokes. This particular virus is a killer and disabler that has a much higher than flu impact on some of those that get it. 

Q: "Is this lockdown is just a way to control us all?"

Sometimes you just have to follow club rules. We all saw the impact of this virus and how it got around the world in a matter of weeks using sneaky tactics of "spreading but not showing" and "jumping on the already weak". Not catching the bug and not passing it on gives us the control over the bug.

Q: "How do masks help ?"

Masks are the new crash helmets.  A bit annoying but reduces the medical impact of an incident. Probably not needed 9/10 times but noone knows when that 1/10 prang is going to happen and when it does it's probably the other persons fault for getting the virus/pulling out of junction.

Q: "This Covid-19 situation is a government conspiracy to control us."

Certainly lots of countries are using the same tactics to reduce the impact of the global virus and they all started doing the similar things within a few weeks in March.  However this is not the first time bugs have traveled round the world think Bubonic plague, "Spanish" flu ( which BTW actually started in Kansas), SARS, MERS, HIV and others. Reaching for the infection prevention playbook is the sensible action that every government should have done. See the extra impact this bug has had on countries that were slow to take avoiding actions reminds us all to "look down the road" and "prepare for the unexpected actions of other road users". We all know some fools that ride like a nutter and are always in scrapes and spills.

March 2020

Q: Why are the restrictions rules always changing ?

There is no doubt that lockdowns and furloughs have a bad impact on the economy whilst reducing the spread of infection. We have seen that more lockdown results in less bugs. Less lockdown means a better economy but more deaths and infections.  There is a slim balance between medical and economic welfare but that balance depends on how the situation is in any country at any time. The ongoing discussion is similar to "Whats the best bike - racer or cruiser ?"  Just sometimes the answers to that question is "Neither - we need a snowmobile this week because there is three feet of snow all over."

Q: How bad has it been ?

That's a complex question that comes down to the excess deaths figures as seen here for the UK  Overall about 12% more people have died than expected. About a 10..15% impact on economic production GDP for 2020 with remanning levels of unemployment not seen since the early 90's. Huge levels of government support spending have pilled trillions £ on the national debt. Yes it has been pretty bad.

Q: I don't know anybody that had Covid-19.

Yes but you live in Devon where the infection rate is lower than most of the rest of the country.  About 1 in 100 people currently have the bug in our region and sometimes that 1 doesn't know they have it. Just 31 people out of 1,200,000 residents across the whole of Devon have passed away directly from the bug ( as at 1st Dec 2020). 

This bug is real, it kills people, you can most likely avoid it.

Thanks to the internet for the insightful memes. 

 

Apple computers and Cray Research - some notes

If you like this check out Cray-History.net

What are the Cray Research connections with Apple Computers ?

Cray XMP/48 with Apple SE inside
(c)1987 John Greenleigh

Cray Research and Apple Computers, seemly at opposite ends of the computer price spectrum, do have some subtle historical links. It is well known that Seymour Cray used an Apple desktop when designing Cray Computer Corp machines.  Macintosh computers where the desktop of choice and used almost exclusively whilst the company worked on the Cray-3 and Cray-4 projects. Much of the work was moving text and graphic files around a shared network.  "Seymour said he thought it was odd that Apple bought a Cray to design Macs because he was using Macs to design Crays. He sent me his designs for the Cray 3 in MacDraw on a floppy." reports KentK.

Apple Computer had a sequence of Cray machines starting in 1986 with an XMP/48 shown above followed by another XMP in Feb 1991. An upgrade to a Cray YMP-2E arrived later in 1991 and finally one of the smaller air-cooled Cray Y-MP EL from Dec '93 to Jun '98. 

Legend has that Apple's first XMP was bought by Steve Jobs after he walked into the Cray facility in Mendota Heights. However "Mike" a more reliable source relates ....

"The first machine installed at Apple was an X-MP/48 completed in August 1986. It had painted purple metallic columns and black power supplies. John Scully was the CEO, and he called the Western Region office in Pleasanton, Ca to get the salesman for his area of Cupertino, and his call was directed to Mike Wilhelm, the Western Region Manager, who after a lengthy conversation dispatched the salesman Bence Gerber, who sold the machine. I was standing at the receptionist desk who took John Scully's call when it came in, and got excited that Apple called us, and then went to Mike Wilhelm's secretary to hear what happened. I was also present for the installation, and spent many days covering the site."

According to a quote from MacObserver Website the timeline would indicate that John Scully was indeed in charge by install time.

"1985: Apple's board of directors authorizes John Sculley to remove Steve Jobs as executive VP and general manager of the faltering Macintosh division. Sculley, who genuinely liked Jobs, didn't act right away, hoping to make a smooth transition. Only after discovering Jobs' plan for a coup the following month did Sculley finally strip the founder of all operational responsibilities."

The Apple Cray machines were originally purchased to help out on a computer on a chip project and other engineering projects. Such projects included using the first Cray XMP as a Macintosh emulator for user interface design improvements. The site analyst reports ..

".. they sometimes ran the first XMP as a single user MacOS emulator ... They had a custom built frame buffer and a mouse hooked up to the IOP (Input/Output Processor)." 

Other applications were Computational Fluid Dynamics codes for disk drive head design improvement and complex chip and board logic proving tests. The Apple Cray machines eventually earned their keep running MOLDFLOW an injection plastic modelling program ( producing some results in the form of Quicktime movies) and later as a file server. 

Example of MOLDFLOW output

 T3d cube of cubes logo animated by changing the size of the surrounding balls.

What is less well known however is that the small active display panel on the front of the Cray T3D machines was an Apple powerbook. The powerbook ran a Macromedia presentation showing the T3D cube of cubes logo with an orbiting growing/shrinking sphere. The display at one site was changed to alternate with a presentation plaque display. It was rumoured that one site engineer ordered a collection of spare bits that, over time, comprised a complete new powerbook.

Cray T3D Tool Time Sales booklet showing the T3D with Powerbook generated logo front and centre (Scale T3D is aprox 2500mm tall) 

 

The Sept 1999 launch on the www.Apple.com web site of the G4 Macintosh computers displayed a YMP-8D computer on the processor details page. Whilst there was no direct reference to that particular machine there was a re-quote of the Seymour quote about "using an Apple to simulate the Cray-3" in a sidebar. The G4 was being touted as a "Supercomputer for the desktop" and with the performance figures of a Gigaflop/s (1 CPU) which is certainly up to at least 1992 supercomputer cpu speeds. The YMP pictured on the site would have had 0.333 Gflop/s per cpu but was sold as sustaining 1 Gflop/s, for the whole machine, on real life applications. Only comparable benchmarks would show if the Apple G4 could match the memory size, memory bandwidth and IO capacity the 8 year old Cray shown. There is however no doubt that the G4 would be cheaper to purchase than any machine from the Cray range.

The once popular Macintosh telnet communications program developed by NCSA (National Centre for Supercomputing Applications at the university of Illinois) in has an icon which is an Cray XMP surrounded by a network with Macs. NCSA had a Cray accessed by Macs and thus needed to develop such a program. 

One of those strange coincidences between Apple and Cray were problems using Perspex as a chassis material. Apple had problems with the Power PC G4 Cube machine as the corners were subject to cracking in some instances. Over at Cray the innovative total immersion cooling Cray 2 had cylindrical coolant reservoirs and cascades. After some time the coolant reservoirs tower material started to "craze" and fine cracks appeared. This was remediated by a new designed a new rectangular cascade that had a smaller footprint, was made of glass that solved the problem. 

Apple Power PC G4 Cube

(scale 180mm tall)

Early Cray-2 showing Cylindrical coolant reservoirs
(scale Cray-2 in foreground is 1200mm tall)

Cray-2 showing revised coolant reservoir 
( scale Cray-2 is 1200mm tall)

See other Cray historical notes at The Cray FAQ over at 0x07bell.net.

Further details in this article from Cray Channels 1987 (c)Cray Research Written by Kent Koeninger at or about the time of Apple's first Cray purchase.