Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) 6.1 Review

USB Copy 2.0 and Universal Search

USB Copy 2.0

The USB copy feature is another place where we see big improvements with this DSM 6.1 update. The overhauled function allows for easy setup and maintenance of various USB copy jobs. You can import photos and videos only or set up rules for data import and export.

Here, I’ll create a data export job and have all my music backed up to my externally connected hard disk drive. I’ve given the task a name, selected my source and target folders, and set the copy mode. You can set it to single or multi-versioned modes.

Multi-versioned backups can easily be rotated and you specify how many version you want to be able to roll back. Since this is music and not active documents, there won’t be much change. Ten versions are plenty in this case and even more than we would need. Still, better to be safe than sorry when dealing with automated tasks.

Speaking of automated, you besides running these backup jobs, you can automate them too. This can happen at a scheduled time or whenever the drive is plugged in. You can also let it eject the drive again once you’re done.

The last page in the creation wizard allows you to limit the file types to back up. There are six pre-determined filters and you can create more custom ones yourself.

And now we have a completely new and never executed backup job. We can easily spot the different icons for different backup jobs that make it easy to find the right one. We could unplug and replug the drive to start our first backup, or we can just press the run button.

You can also edit the settings, triggers, and file filters at any time. There is no need to delete and remake it just because you want to change things.

Pressing the Run button will execute the job and you can follow the procedure on your screen or log out. You’re prompted with audio signals from the NAS’ speaker when a job starts and when it finishes again. That way we know when it’s safe to remove the ejected drive after a finished backup job.

Once a task has been executed, it will show the details from the last run. That way, you always know when this specific job was run the last time.

Universal Search

The Universal search feature is pretty much self-explanatory in its title, but we’ll still have a look at it in this DSM 6.1 review. Before you can search your files, you will need to index the folders you want to be able to search through. This is quickly done through the preferences.

Just click the button to launch the sub-dialog and add the folders you want to index. The process will start right away and you can follow it through the taskbar icon too.

There are a few other settings, but nothing too major.

Once your folders are indexed, you can search for anything and get results much faster than using your desktops search function. Here I searched for Casper, which is my cat’s name, and got the result instantly.

The preview panel on the side will show a thumbnail along with file information. Double-clicking a file will open it with the appropriate app.

You can switch the list from to more details and also to thumbnails.

There are a lot of filters that you can use to narrow down your search and that is one of the reasons this app is called Universal Search. You can filter by file times, size, owner, tags, program names and more.

You can even filter by file information such as bitrates and codecs, which camera the photos were taken with, the exposure, and more.

And you aren’t just limited to one filter at a time. Just hit the plus button to add another filter until you got nothing more to add.

The search tool even finds your search term in help files, applications, note station, and the office app that we had a look at one the previous pages. The groups with matches also get a little dot next to them, saving you from clicks into groups with no results.