Synology DSM 7.0: Know All the Changes of the New Operating System

The manufacturer Synology has its new operating system DSM 7.0 in version “Release Candidate”, this new version of the operating system incorporates a lot of very important changes, improvements, news, and also stops being compatible with many services of the DSM version 6.2 which is the one we currently have officially and in a “stable” version. Do you want to know all the changes and news of the new DSM 7.0 operating system?

Requirements before upgrading to DSM 7.0

The manufacturer Synology has made a series of recommendations before updating the NAS server, something very important because we will not have all the services and options of the previous version.

Synology DSM 7.0

The first thing to keep in mind is that, before updating to DSM 7.0, we need to have DSM 6.2 or higher, that is, we must update from the latest “stable” version. We must also bear in mind that the download and installation of this new operating system can take up to 20 minutes, plus the update of the different packages that could take up to 1 hour, depending on the hardware you have on your NAS server, the number of files and the number of packages installed. To avoid compatibility issues, if you have Active Insight, Synology Photos, and Secure SignIn installed during the beta version of DSM 7.0, you should update them first to avoid crashing.

Synology warns us that this new version of DSM 7.0 consumes more resources than the previous one, in addition, if your NAS has 1GB of RAM or less, you will surely have performance problems because it is very close to RAM. There are a number of Synology models that do not allow update via version notification, and you will have to download the update from Synology Download Center. If you have one of the following models, you will have to perform the update manually:

  • 15-Series: RS815RP +, RS815 +, RS815, DS2415 +, DS1815 +, DS1515 +, DS1515, DS715, DS415 +, DS415play, DS215 +, DS215j, DS115, DS115j
  • 14-Series: RS2414RP +, RS2414 +, RS814RP +, RS814 +, RS814, RS214, DS414, DS414slim, DS414j, DS214 +, DS214, DS214play, DS214se, DS114
  • 13-Series: DS2413 +, DS1813 +, DS1513 +, DS713 +, DS213

If you have NAS servers of the FS, SA, XS / XS +, and DVA series you will not have DSM 7.0 yet, until next quarter they will not have an update, so you will have to keep waiting.

Important changes in DSM 7.0

This new version of DSM 7.0 does not support USB devices such as WiFi or Bluetooth adapters, nor does it support 3G / 4G modem, USB speakers or DTV, without a doubt it will be an important handicap. If you currently use these devices, when you update to the new version they will be disconnected and will not work. Another important aspect is that DSM 7.0 is no longer compatible with the EXT3 file system, the normal thing today is to use EXT4, however, if you come from far behind, before updating you should make a backup copy of your volumes EXT3 and transfer the data because it won’t support it anymore.

This new version disables NTLMv1 by default and only supports NTLMv2 by default, if you want to change this behavior you can do it in the SMB configuration. Other changes made is that the SSD block-level cache for LUNs is no longer supported, and neither are NT4 domains, Python3 support has also been removed in its original package and has now been integrated into the operating system directly.

If you use EZ-Internet, you are now in the «Router configuration» control panel, if you use DDNS (Dynamic DNS), all these services have been withdrawn: CloudNS, DNO-O-Matic, DNSEXIT, Dynamic DO !. jp, Joker.com, RU-CENTER, TwoDNS.de, Variomedia, Zoneedit.com, so you will have to change providers. The connection to the NAS server via QuickConnection is protected with an SSL certificate, and the domain will use a Let’s Encrypt certificate. Lastly, converting video to FLV and MP4 will not be supported on various models.

What’s new in this new operating system

In this new version of DSM 7.0 we have a new storage manager where we will have everything better organized and easier to understand, we have improvements in usability and also when performing different actions. We will also find new features in the storage sets, volumes and disks, for example, the “Fast Repair” function has been incorporated that will allow us to repair a RAID in much less time, however, the list of changes regarding storage is quite deep, all with the goal of improving data integrity.

The SSD cache today is very important to speed up the reading and writing of data on NAS servers, now it is possible to create and delete SSD cache without interruption of system services, software has also been incorporated to monitor accesses E / S and provide more precise capacity recommendations, other changes include the ability to put all BTRFS metadata into the SSD cache to improve small file performance. Finally, the ability to enable automatic protection on multi-drive fault tolerant read and write caches has been added.

In DSM 7.0 we will have new monitoring systems for the general status of the NAS, the file system has been improved and also the file services, the management of users and groups has also been improved, in addition, now we will have greater security by default, Since they have incorporated TLS 1.3 when it comes to getting into the administration of the NAS server, in addition, we can force certain users and groups to activate two-step authentication. Finally, the user experience has been vastly improved with the new DSM 7.0 operating system.

We recommend you access the list of changes in DSM 7.0 where you will find all the details.