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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Synology NAS Observations - Ubuntu

I'm currently setting up a Synology dual disk NAS unit.

Synology comes with a client application called Synology Assistant that connects the NAS server to your machine so that it can be accessed using a web administration application (webman).

Webman allows you to upload files from your computer to a number of reserved directories; music, pictures, and video. I uploaded my pictures first and that went well-enough.

But when I uploaded music files to the NAS, things started getting flaky. One problem is that I have a machine with an IDE primary drive and filesystem. My music directory is on the secondary SATA drive not on the primary. Using Firefox 4.0.1, the webman interface refuses to recognize the SATA drive.

So I moved some files to a directory on the IDE drive just to test the critter. Sure enough I could upload music files to the NAS 'music' directory. But just about any interruption of the upload process such as switching tabs would cause a browser crash.

I decided to create a Symlink to the SATA music directory on the IDE drive. Firefox refused to acknowledge it.

So I tried Google Chrome. Chrome not only recognised the symlink but crashed far less frequently.

Then a funny thing happened. Webman refused to open the music directory on the NAS. I got 'Failed Operation' messages. Oddly enough, I could create a sub-directory under music to upload music files to but the music directory looked empty otherwise. I'm still trying to unravel this mystery.

However, I tried to get to the NAS from my Android Thunderbolt phone. The default Android browser failed to connect to the NAS server. I tried the Firefox browser and it worked fine. Not only that, when I accessed the music directory Firefox revealed the missing music files on the music directory. Very strange behavior. Webman appears to be buggy.