Cloud station [Review] - on Synology DS713+

[sebaroney]

I'm just here reviewing the cloud station feature on the Synology NAS, currently I'm working in the field of IT and I know, from working with people, especially in the field of IT, dropbox has become over the last 4 years or so a very common tool used by so many people. And from my point of view, it is one of the handiest features around for keeping data in the cloud, simply either for backing up files or for just accessing them on your devices. People regularly bring up the word 'dropbox' in a conversation, I am now commonly mentioning 'cloud station', which is, my person dropbox, and many seem very interested in it and here I am writing an review of the features, for those people who ask what is it?, what does it do?, how does it work?, and how do I get it?

Cloud station is simply dropbox, just while using your own hard drive as the cloud. This has many added features, cheap unlimited data (to whatever you can fit in your NAS), and no monthly fees (aside from your internet connection, which is usually very large these days anyway). On the client side, the apps are available on the usual list of devices (iOS, Mac, Windows, Android, Windows Phone), and it works pretty much the same way as dropbox, as it syncs files on your computer to the cloud, and lets you access them on your all your devices.

Below is the iOS app for Cloud Station:

A few extra features to mention is the Recycle Bin, which does what it says. When you delete a file, the file gets moved into a hidden folder, and can only be access from the NAS UI, from there the file can be emptied or restored. Another feature is the ability to have multiple users, as many as you want. This allows you to share folders between the users, and allow them to have there own folder share.

Below is the UI manager inside the Synology DSM:

It's simple, quick and easy to setup, as with pretty much everything. Synology has packaged it quite nicely, and It works really well, as how it should. Cloud station can only be installed on a Synology NAS, but its definitely worth trying it out, and its a great replacement for dropbox.

 

[stevech]

another consideration for use of Dropbox and it's peers is security. There have been notable incidents where disgruntled employees, ex-employees, and consultants find means to get at the encryption keys for the stored data. This most true for the US and countries requiring the storage supplier to answer a court order for data. (But some users encrypt before uploading, to protect).

Many users naively believe that encryption for transmission means the data is ever secure.

 

[PrivateJoker]

another consideration for use of Dropbox and it's peers is security.

I think security of your own device (from the WAN, from sloppy password/user rights management, and physical security) has just as many concerns for me as using Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc. Neither is a security/privacy haven, but the chances of my Synology getting attacked/hacked, stolen, or burnt down is probably as likely (or more so) than having my data misappropriated or negligently handled in the cloud (plus, statistically Dropbox, and the Amazon S3 that underpins most of it, has a much higher rate of uptime, file integrity, and distributed multi-path availability than a SOHO/Consumer NAS behind a residential ISP can provide).

In either scenario, one's own sloppy p/w management & user rights controls are probably the biggest threat.

For unknown reasons certain DDNS providers caused me to get a lot more malevolent login attempts daily from across the net than others. Thankfully the Synology has a firewall for that and good logging, but it makes my scared for anyone that runs a home NAS with a weak admin p/w and/or operable guest account login.

Also there is a 3rd party (user written, not Dropbox official) Dropbox package that's been available for awhile on Synology, but it seems to be in a release state somewhere between alpha & beta. Not totally ready for prime time perhaps.

I just saw Zyxel integrated Dropbox, out of the box, with their NAS devices.

Personally I like/need Dropbox specifically because they make APIs open to developers to integrate Dropbox seamlessly into a variety of useful apps & services.

 

[stevech]

I keep 100% of sensitive documents in one place on the NAS. That's an encrypted virtual drive managed not by the NAS, but by various PCs/laptops I have that use freeware: http://www.safehousesoftware.com/

And that drive is mounted/open only when I'm using files. Anyone accessing the NAS sees only one big file, contents encrypted.

IMO, this is lower risk by far.

I'd use dropbox et al for photos and so on that aren't sensitive. Indeed, I've used OpenDrive for years for such things. They are low cost and do permit uploading from external drives and UNC paths like //mynas//xxx. But they and dropbox have had breaches in the past due to an ex-employee getting into their storage keys supposedly limited to a very few in the company, used only for court orders.

 

[jwinter]

"works really well"?

When you say "It works really well, as how it should" it is far from obvious that you tested it at all. Last time I tried to use it I found that if I renamed or rearranged a root folder slightly that had 10GB in it, it would delete the entire folder from the slave (totally clogging the recycle bin), and take a week and most of my internet quota to copy the whole 10GB over again!

This is just totally unacceptable and about as far from Dropbox performance as it is possible to get. I would like to know if Synology has improved its algorithm yet but your post didn't help me to find out.

I switched to bittorrent sync, but that is still not behaving well for me. Now I am wondering whether to switch back to cloudstation but I am having trouble finding out if it has been improved or not yet.

 

[stevech]

... the chances of my Synology getting attacked/hacked, stolen, or burnt down is probably as likely (or more so) than having my data misappropriated or negligently handled in the cloud (plus, statistically Dropbox, and the Amazon S3 that underpins most of it, has a much higher rate of uptime, file integrity, and distributed multi-path availability than a SOHO/Consumer NAS behind a residential ISP can provide).

I can't fully agree. The personal or SOHO NAS is not a high-viz attractive target as is Dropbox and its peers. And too, I don't have disgruntled ex-employee/ex-contractor risks. A cloud storage company I shall not name did have a huge breach, and moreover, sabotage by an ex-contractor; revenge for having his contract ended too soon to suit him. The service was out for most users for many, many days, way over a week. My greatest risk, I think, is theft of NAS and other tech grabbables in the same room. I have that covered in my backup strategy.

 

[L&LD]

I can't fully agree. The personal or SOHO NAS is not a high-viz attractive target as is Dropbox and its peers. And too, I don't have disgruntled ex-employee/ex-contractor risks. A cloud storage company I shall not name did have a huge breach, and moreover, sabotage by an ex-contractor; revenge for having his contract ended too soon to suit him. The service was out for most users for many, many days, way over a week. My greatest risk, I think, is theft of NAS and other tech grabbables in the same room. I have that covered in my backup strategy.

You have to name that company! Come on, do you work for them, or what?