Turn Your Synology NAS into a Personal Cloud Stack: File Sync, Photo Backup, and Remote Access

Cloud storage subscriptions have a way of quietly multiplying. You start with Google One for the family, tack on iCloud for the phone, maybe keep a Dropbox account for work, and before long you're paying $30 a month to store files you mostly don't look at. A Synology NAS won't eliminate every subscription, but it can replace the ones that actually matter, and give you more control over the data that matters most.

This post covers a practical setup using a mid-range Synology device (the DS923+ is a reasonable choice in 2026, but much of this applies to any DSM 7.x unit) to handle file sync, photo backup, media storage, and remote access. The goal isn't a lab project you'll never finish. It's a daily-driver setup.

Choosing Your Starting Point

Before touching software, the hardware question matters. Synology's DiskStation lineup spans a wide range. For a household or small team doing file sync and photo backup, a 2-bay unit like the DS223 works fine at around $300 before drives. If you want to run Docker containers alongside DSM's native apps, bump to a 4-bay with an Intel or AMD CPU rather than a Realtek chip. The Realtek-based units are good for storage but slow when transcoding or running multiple containers.

Drive sizing depends on your current footprint. Pull your Google storage usage from myaccount.google.com/storage and double it. That's a conservative starting point. WD Red Plus or Seagate IronWolf drives are purpose-built for NAS workloads and run quieter than desktop drives at similar price points.

File Sync: Replacing Google Drive or Dropbox

Synology ships Synology Drive Server as a package through DSM's Package Center. Once installed, it gives you a folder on the NAS that syncs to Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android clients through the Synology Drive app. The behavior is close enough to Google Drive that the learning curve is minimal.

A few things worth configuring immediately:

• Enable versioning on your shared folders. DSM supports up to 32 historical versions per file, which has saved me more than once from an accidental overwrite.
• Set up team folders if multiple people are syncing. These work differently from personal Drive folders and have their own permission model.
• Turn on recycle bin protection on critical shares so deletions don't propagate instantly to the NAS.

For remote sync between two Synology units (say, a home NAS and one at a family member's place), Synology's Hyper Backup paired with a second DS unit via QuickConnect or Tailscale gives you an offsite backup without paying for cloud storage. More on Tailscale below.

Photo Backup: Synology Photos vs. Immich

Synology Photos is the built-in option and it's genuinely good. It does facial recognition, geo-tagging, album sharing, and mobile backup. For most users who just want Google Photos to stop threatening to delete their memories unless they upgrade, Synology Photos is enough.

That said, if you're already comfortable running Docker containers on your NAS, Immich is worth considering instead. It has a faster development pace, a cleaner mobile app, and better duplicate detection. The trade-off is that Immich stores photos in its own folder structure rather than your existing NAS shares, which means you need to think about whether you want a separate backup strategy for the Immich data directory.

If you go with Synology Photos:

1. Open Package Center, install Synology Photos
2. Enable the Synology Photos mobile app for automatic backup on iOS and Android
3. Create a shared space if you want family members to contribute to a common library
4. Enable machine learning-based subject detection under Settings if your unit supports it

If you go with Immich via Docker, the Immich project maintains a docker-compose.yml that works on Synology with minor tweaks. You'll need to enable the Container Manager package first.

# Minimal Immich setup (abbreviated, see immich.app for full compose file)
version: "3.8"
services:
  immich-server:
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:release
    volumes:
      - /volume1/photos/immich:/usr/src/app/upload
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - 2283:3001
    restart: always

The full compose file includes PostgreSQL and Redis, both required. Run it in Container Manager under a project, and Immich will be available at your NAS IP on port 2283.

Media Storage: Plex or Jellyfin for Video

If you rip your own Blu-rays or have a collection of downloaded media, centralizing it on the NAS and streaming it through Plex or Jellyfin beats maintaining folders on every device.

Plex Media Server installs directly through DSM's Package Center. Jellyfin requires Docker but has no paid tier, which matters if you're trying to reduce subscriptions. Both support hardware transcoding, but Plex's hardware transcoding requires a Plex Pass subscription ($5/month or $120 lifetime), while Jellyfin's is free.

For Intel-based Synology units, Jellyfin's hardware transcoding via Intel Quick Sync works well and significantly reduces CPU load during playback. The Jellyfin Docker container needs /dev/dri passed through, which you can configure in Container Manager's device settings.

Remote Access: Tailscale Over QuickConnect

Synology's built-in QuickConnect relay lets you access your NAS remotely without port forwarding, but traffic routes through Synology's servers and speeds can be inconsistent. Tailscale is a better option for most users.

Tailscale creates an encrypted mesh network between your devices using WireGuard under the hood. Install it on your NAS in package manager or by manually running the appropriate package install:

# SSH into the NAS, then:
wget https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/tailscale_<version>_amd64.tgz
tar xvf tailscale_<version>_amd64.tgz
sudo ./install.sh
sudo tailscale up

Once the NAS joins your Tailnet, you can access it from any device running Tailscale using the NAS's Tailscale IP (typically in the 100.x.x.x range). No port forwarding, no dynamic DNS headaches. The free Tailscale tier supports up to 100 devices, which is plenty for personal use.

For HTTPS access to DSM and your hosted apps, pair Tailscale with Synology's built-in reverse proxy under Control Panel > Login Portal > Advanced. You can issue a Let's Encrypt certificate for a custom domain pointed at your Tailscale IP range, though this requires a bit of DNS configuration depending on your registrar.

Backup Strategy: The Part People Skip

A NAS is not a backup. It's storage. If you have a RAID array and no offsite copy, a house fire or a bad firmware update takes everything.

The practical setup:

• Hyper Backup to a cloud destination (Backblaze B2 is cheap at $0.006/GB/month) for critical data
• Snapshot Replication on the NAS itself for quick recovery from accidental deletions
• A second Synology unit at another location for a full replica, if the data volume justifies it

Backblaze B2 integrates directly with Hyper Backup. You create a bucket, generate API keys, and configure a backup task that runs nightly. For a 2TB library, you're looking at about $12/month, which is less than most Google One plans at that tier.

What This Actually Replaces

After a few weeks running this setup, the services that become genuinely redundant are Google Photos (replaced by Synology Photos or Immich), Google Drive or Dropbox for file sync (replaced by Synology Drive), and Plex Pass's cloud features if you were using them. iCloud stays useful for device-level backups on Apple hardware because it integrates at the OS level in ways a NAS can't replicate. That's a reasonable trade.

The upfront cost (NAS plus drives) runs $500 to $800 for a capable setup. Monthly costs drop to electricity plus a modest Backblaze bill. Over two to three years, the math usually favors the NAS, and you get the data ownership angle for free.