Synology Home vs Homes Explained - New users most common mistake

In this video I will be going over the home and homes folder in Synology DSM. This is one of the most common questions I get, and a common mistake that people make!

Synology Recommendations*:

#nas #synology

TOC:
00:00 Introduction to home and homes
03:54 Workflow recommendations
07:08 Problems with snapshots
09:13 Syncing between NAS units
10:17 Use in applications
12:06 Summary

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[QuestionMan]

I groaned audibly when I saw "Home vs Homes." Brought back a lot of memories. The struggle is real.

[StonyAcresEstate]

Bad job Synology...bad job. Good job SpaceRex trying to unpack that for us.

[rabraga]

Hey, just want to add that this video was one of the most important to me. I have bought a Synology NAS one year ago for me and my family stuff (photos, videos and docs) and made a preliminar set up structuring some features the wrong way you have just shown. Fortunately they have not started to use yet, and I have time to fix. Thank you so much for your great instruction videos. They have been helping me a lot! Greetings from Brazil! Rogério

[DavidM]

I looked really hard at using Synology Drive which required the whole home / homes structure. The benefits were just not worth the cost of all of this structure. For sharing and syncing, Syncthing worked for my purposes and I keep my existing structure in place. This was a video well worth making and very well done Will.

[peerpaulin]

New Synology user here: That was really helpful. Although I do not tend to mess with things I do not fully understand there is a slight chance with me to do some weird things when I become impatient.
Your explanation was very helpful to understand the meaning and architecture of the homes folder. I already was wondering about it. Thanks a lot Will.

[AndrewHoeveler]

This makes so much more sense now, thanks. I have NO IDEA why Synology didn't just call the "homes" folder "users" or something. Homes vs home is SO DUMB.

[koryholding]

Love this video. So helpful. Thank you for creating it.

[anoopster]

Thank you for the clear explanation. Shame on Synology for making almost no effort to explain this.

[BSDjunkie]

Home folder is an environment variable for each user pointing to where your home folder is located.

[CapsLock]

even as a user for years with synology, i still get confused every time i login. LOL. Thanks as always for the great content SpaceRex!

[RobHoffman]

Way back in the Netware days, we mounted the User-Home folder (directory then) to the F:\ drive at login. That made it much easier to understand from an administrative perspective. It's a shame Synology used "Homes" instead of something more intuitive. Great explaination on how it works.

[timroach]

I love your videos, This new Synology DS224+ is my first NAS. And its only me or maybe sometimes my wife storing files on it so I am going to try and keep it simple. Your videos are helping enormously!

[fmalespin]

Thank you for making these videos. You have helped me so much. My new synology 923+ is working really well, after following your videos.

[DELICIOUS-]

You deserve more viewers, very nice video and very well explained everything

[johnnygoodface]

Very good. Might I suggest that if you talk about not being able to use snapshots, the user could still restore their own files with the Synology Drive versioning feature. BTW, I just love your music theme, it's very 1990s

[SirDadbod]

i already know im going to be watching this video over and over again hahahaha

[AaAa-jeeo]

No "Alright, how's it going y'all?" Sacrilegious 😆 Seriously though, it's like Will is pschic - was just wondering about clarification/bit of a deeper dive on this subject - thanks as always SpaceRex!!🙌

[PeterHonig.]

I'm not sure if everyone is aware that you can activate/deactivate the creation of the Home folders by going to the Control Panel and selecting "User & Group", then selecting the "Advanced" tab, and scrolling down toward the bottom where there is a checkbox entitled "Enable home service". Since I do not want any Home folders, I always leave it unchecked.

[bennielaars]

I have recently started watching many of your videos and only now notice that you have a specific set of shirts, I like your style😅

[Banjoba]

This is really a great video and cleared up years of accepted confusion for me.