How to Set Up a Synology NAS for Business

Before powering on the NAS, install the hard drives:

• Pull out each drive tray (button-release or screwed depending on model)
• Slide the 3.5″ hard drive onto the tray and secure with the four side screws
• For 2.5″ drives, use the bottom mounting holes
• Push the trays back until they click into place

Connect the NAS to your network switch or router using an Ethernet cable. Connect the power adapter and power on. The STATUS light will flash during boot (1 to 3 minutes).

Open a web browser on a PC connected to the same network. Go to: find.synology.com

The Web Assistant will automatically find the Synology NAS on your network and display it. Click Connect. Alternatively, if you know the NAS IP address (check your router DHCP table), go directly to http://NAS-IP-address:5000.

Click Install Now to install the latest DSM (DiskStation Manager) operating system. The NAS will download DSM from Synology servers automatically (internet connection required). The installation takes 5 to 10 minutes and includes an automatic restart.

During setup, configure:

• Server Name: A name for the NAS on the network (e.g. CYBERGATE-NAS or OFFICE-NAS)
• Admin Username: Create a named admin account (avoid using the default admin username)
• Admin Password: Strong password of at least 16 characters
• QuickConnect ID: Optional – allows access from outside the office via find.synology.com/yourid

Open Storage Manager from the DSM desktop. Click Storage Pool > Create.

Choose Better performance for a standard RAID configuration. Select the RAID type:

• RAID 1 (2-drive NAS): Mirror – one drive is an exact copy of the other. 50% storage efficiency. Tolerates one drive failure.
• RAID 5 (3 or 4 drives): Parity – distributes data and parity across all drives. Good efficiency. Tolerates one drive failure. Recommended for 4-bay NAS.
• SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID): Recommended for mixed drive sizes. Automatically optimises based on available drives.

Select all installed drives and click Next. Perform a disk check when prompted (takes several hours but confirms drive health). Create the storage pool.

After the storage pool is created, click Volume > Create. Select the storage pool created above. Set the volume size (recommend: use maximum available space unless you plan multiple volumes). Set the file system to Btrfs (recommended – supports snapshots, file self-healing and better ransomware protection than EXT4).

Click Next > Apply. The volume will initialise over the next few minutes to hours depending on drive size.

Go to Control Panel > Shared Folder > Create > Create Shared Folder. Create folders for each team or purpose. Example structure:

• Company – company-wide documents accessible to all staff
• Finance – restricted to finance team only
• HR – restricted to HR and management
• Projects – accessible to all or by project team
• IT – IT team only
• Backup – for backup jobs (not directly accessible to users)

For each folder, enable Enable data checksum for advanced data integrity (Btrfs only) and Enable Windows ACL-based privilege for granular permission control.

Go to Control Panel > User & Group > User > Create. Create an account for each staff member with their name and a strong password. Enable Disable the user for accounts that are not yet active.

Create groups for each department (Control Panel > Group > Create): Finance, HR, Management, All Staff. Add users to their respective groups.

Assign shared folder permissions by group: select a shared folder > Edit > Permission. Add groups and assign Read/Write or Read-Only access. Remove the guest and admin accounts from shared folders where they should not have access.

Open Package Center and install Hyper Backup (free, from Synology).

Open Hyper Backup and click + (Data backup task). Choose your backup destination:

• External device (USB drive): Fastest for local backup. Plug in an external USB drive to the NAS USB port and select it.
• Synology C2 Storage: Synology’s own cloud backup service. Affordable at approximately USD 9.99/month for 200 GB.
• Amazon S3 / Wasabi / Backblaze B2: Third-party cloud storage. Lower cost per GB but requires creating an account and S3 bucket.

Select the shared folders and applications to back up. Set a schedule (recommend: daily at 2am). Set the number of backup versions to keep (recommend: 30 days of daily backups).

Run the first backup manually to verify it completes without errors. Check the backup log after the first run.