Synology 2023 and beyond: DSM 7.2, own cameras and new storage solutions

At today’s “Synology 2023 and Beyond” annual event, Synology announced news about its own NAS DiskStation Manager (DSM) software and upcoming products. This also includes a new router and dedicated IP cameras for the NVR systems and Surveillance Station of the NAS systems.

DSM 7.2 will arrive in early 2023

With DSM 7.2, Synology has announced the next update for its own NAS operating system and has announced a release in early 2023. Among other things, DSM 7.2 introduces full volume encryption, which is said to increase storage performance by a 48% compared to encryption based on shared folders.

WORM folder against ransomware

DSM 7.2 also introduces WORM (write once, read many) folders. In such folders, the data is protected from tampering by not being able to change or delete it for a specified period of time. Immutable data backups can also be done via Hyper Backup in the future. Notably, by not being able to tamper with data, Synology also wants to increase protection against ransomware and cybercriminals, who repeatedly encrypt data on systems to extort “ransom” for decryption.

Remotely wipe data with Synology Drive

Synology Drive will also receive an update, allowing teams to protect their shared data with watermarks and download policies. The ability to remotely delete data is intended to minimize security risks by deleting synchronized folders from stolen Windows and macOS clients, for example. In addition, automatic login with AD credentials and backup and sync task settings make mass deployment easy, Synology said.

multi-channel SME

Data sharing via SMB also sees changes with DSM 7.2, with cross-protocol file locking between SMB shares and Synology Drive, ensuring that files in use cannot be edited or overwritten. Also, with SMB multi-channel transfer, all available network connections between servers and clients can be used to increase SMB file transfer performance.

Synology AI Cameras

With the NVR and Surveillance Station systems, Synology already offers hardware and software for video surveillance. Synology 500 series IP cameras will be added in early 2023, the settings of which can be managed directly on Surveillance Station. The cameras offer features such as intrusion, person and vehicle detection and come in two form factors with 5 MP sensors capable of recording in 16:9 3K (2880 × 1620) at 30 FPS. The cameras are PoE compliant and weather resistant (IP67) so they can be used both indoors and outdoors.

Scalable storage servers

Synology has also announced new scale-out systems for file and object storage by 2023. Scale-out clusters are said to be significantly faster than Synology’s current largest solutions, as performance and capacity can be scaled almost linearly adding more devices. The first generation of scale-out systems supports clusters of up to 60 servers for effective storage capacity of more than 12PB, sequential writes of more than 60GB/s, and more than 80,000 concurrent connections. The clusters offer more than 99.99% availability and are compatible with Synology Hyper Backup and Active Backup data protection solutions.

Worldwide backup management

A new management platform for Active Backup and C2 Backup aims to unify Synology’s on-premises and cloud solutions, enabling the management, deployment and monitoring of data backup tasks across the entire IT infrastructure, regardless of the location and size of systems and services. All devices and services can be backed up through the platform and restored if necessary.

Active Insight: Violation and Abuse Detection

Active Insight also receives settings to automatically prevent activities that violate privacy standards. The new data loss prevention feature monitors user activities such as logins, file access, or file and folder sharing, and compares the checksums of uploaded or shared files. When thresholds are reached or rules are triggered, the system can send alerts or take direct action, such as shutting down clients potentially infected with ransomware.

What’s new in C2 Identity

Synology C2 Identity, the central management of identities and devices, will also be expanded in the coming year to allow local and online password-free logins to devices and services. Among other things, Windows Hello and Apple Face ID/Touch ID will be integrated, and in connection with the upcoming C2 identity user portal, employees using managed devices can automatically log in to web services with SAML support. Optionally, two-factor authentication (2FA) can be activated for more sensitive services such as ERP or CRM systems.

With the WRX560, Synology has also announced a new Wi-Fi 6 router.

ComputerBase has received information about this article from Synology under NDA. The only requirement was the earliest possible publication date.