Synology Released Free Comprehensive Upgrade Firmware

Taipei, Taiwan—January 12, 2007—Synology Inc. has released a new upgrade firmware for the Disk Station Series, Cube Station Series, and Rack Station Series, providing brand new web management UI, brand new photo sharing application, Photo Station 2, more flexible storage management, wider Windows ADS support, external USB disk hibernation, FTP hack prevention, flexible Download Station bandwidth control, as well as an improved version of Synology Data Replicator II.

In the new upgrade firmware, users will enjoy Photo Station 2 that allows visitors to comment on the photos. It also allows users to choose album cover, edit title and description of the photos and albums, and the most important of all, it provides better performance!

FTP IP Auto-Block automatically blocks repeated attempt IP’s. External USB disk hibernation and read-only NTFS capability are long waited features from many Synology users. Those who want to have better control of their network usage are now able to set up Download Station bandwidth, Download Station port range, and Passive FTP port range. For Windows ADS users, in addition to using Samba to access Synology products, now they have 2 more options to access Synology products: FTP and AFP. Moreover, they can use Synology Data Replicator II to backup their desktop data now.

Synology Inc. is a company that would love to provide all the newly developed functions to its users for free, which is a well-famed convention between Synology users and media press. After a long beta testing period that has aroused interests of a great many Synology users to participate in, the firm new upgrade firmware has finally been released.

To proceed with the download, please visit http://www.synology.com/download.

Major Changes of the firmware

1. New web management UI: (1) function items are reorganized (2) CSS style sheet is improved.
2. For RAID capable models, users can create a Non-RAID volume first and upgrade it to RAID 1 in a later time when another hard drive is added.
3. For RAID capable models, users are able to expand RAID 1 or RAID 5 volume to a larger one by replacing existing hard drives with larger ones one by one. Instead of copying all the data to somewhere before changing to larger hard disks, Synology now allows users to replace hard disks one by one and keep all the data. This is a function that will save users tremendous amount of time.
4. Domain users are allowed to login via Samba/FTP/AFP. Users now have more ways to obtain data.
5. External USB disk hibernation is supported.
6. External hard drives in NTFS format is supported as read-only now.
7. FTP enhancements: 1) Allows user to set the port range for passive FTP. (2) Automatically blocks repeated attempt IP’s; this hacker prevention function allows users to store data in Synology products without worrying about data being stolen.
8. Download Station enhancements: (1) Allows users to set the port range. (2) Allow users to set upload and download bandwidth. (3) Enhanced the information display on Download Redirector when the disk is full.
9. Photo Station 2: (1) New UI of Photo Station. (2) Better Performance. (3) Allows user comment on individual photo. (4) Better browsing experience. (5) Allows choosing album cover. (6) Allows editing title and description on photo or album. (7) Allows right-click to download the original-sized photo.
10. More DMA has added into Synology DMA support list.
11. Enhanced data copy stability for wireless environment. Since wireless environment is now so popular, Synology has enhanced this to increase the reliability when users are copying data to/from Synology products.

Major Changes of Synology Data Replicator II

1. Windows ADS users are now able to use DR II to back up desktop data.
2. DR II will automatically change port to prevent from installation port conflict.
3. The ability to back up long file name is enhanced. 240 bytes of file length is allowed.
4. When installing a newer version of DR II, users no longer need to uninstall the older version manually. The installation program has integrated the process.
5. Users can set to run DR II automatically on Windows startup.
6. Read-only files can now be backed up; open files can now be backed up using immediate Backup or Schedule Backup.
7. When files are deleted from the desktop, the deleted file will also be removed from the “latest” folder on the server so they will both have exactly same files.
8. Synchronization and Schedule backup are allowed to co-exist from this release on.