Synology

Synology is a manufacturer of network-attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN) appliances. Its product range spans desktop units, rackmount systems, and dual-controller arrays, all running DiskStation Manager (DSM) — a web-based operating system that provides storage management and a catalog of installable applications.

Capabilities

Beyond basic file storage, DSM extends a single appliance into several roles through first-party applications:

• File services — SMB, NFS, and AFP shares, with snapshots and versioning.
• Block storage — iSCSI targets that serve as shared datastores for VMware and Hyper-V hosts.
• Backup and replication — agent-based backup of servers, workstations, and virtual machines, plus replication to a second appliance or to cloud storage.
• Directory and network services — LDAP and RADIUS servers, DNS, and DHCP.
• Virtualization — a built-in hypervisor for running virtual machines on the appliance itself.

Storage and Resilience

Synology appliances support standard RAID levels as well as Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR), which simplifies arrays built from mixed drive sizes. Higher-end models in the SA and UC series include dual controllers, allowing the array to keep serving data if one controller fails.

Virtualization Storage

Synology maintains certification with VMware vSphere and supports both iSCSI and NFS datastores, which allows its appliances to act as backing storage for production virtualization environments rather than as file storage alone.