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After five months in public beta, the latest version of the popular DiskStation Manager NAS operating system, the DSM 7.1, is officially available today, May 10, 2022, per Synology. That's the good news.
The not-so-good is Surveillance Station 9.0—slated to be a major upgrade of version 8.2—has been delayed. Synology told me that it'd be available sometime this month though that could change.
A bit of a potential upgrade dilemma for Surveillance Station users
The delay of Surveillance Statin 9.0 is significant because if you're running the beta version of the app right now, you must remove it or be prompted to upgrade to the final version (which is not yet available) before you can upgrade your NAS server to the official version of DSM 7.1.
If you choose to remove the app, upon completing the upgrade, you'd note that Surveillance Station 9.0 is not there, nor is the beta version, and you can't use version 8.2 anymore.
(The solution is if you need Surveillance Station and its data, keep using the DSM 7.1 beta until version 9.0 is officially available).
For those not using Surveillance Station or using version 8.2, the upgrade process is a brief manual firmware update. All you have to do is download the official DSM 7.1 image for your server, build 42261—here's the download link. After that, log into the server's web interface and perform a manual upgrade via the Control Panel.
I did that on a DS1517+ and a DS1821+, both were running DSM 7.0.1, and things went smoothly. The process took just around 10 minutes.
Still, a couple of things to note per Synology:
- With DSM 7.1, the support for Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) is no longer. That's not a huge issue, if at all. Apple has deprecated AFP for a long time, and Synology has disabled it by default, starting with DSM 7.0. Apple has opted for the more common Server Message Block (SMB) protocol for a long time.
- Movie and streaming buff should note that the support for the Advanced Media Extension (AME) will be upgraded to version 2.0, which, for some reason, requires an account with Synology to work. It's not a huge issue for those using QuickConnect, but if you want to use the server completely independent from Synology, that's something to consider.
- The following apps will also be updated to the latest version (or require a manual upgrade afterward): Replication Server, web Station, Video Station, Virtual Machine Manager, Snapshot Replication, Python 3.8, Docker, Media Server, and Python 3. So make sure your existing applications support the latest versions of any related app/platform before updating.
Other than that, DSM 7.1 comes with many ecosystem-wide improvements. Together with it, Synology says it has also launched the following applications and services:
- Active Backup for Business: bandwidth control, expanded monitoring and reporting capabilities, and support for DSM backups.
- Active Insight: centralized login activity and Hyper Backup task status monitoring, plus the ability to update monitored systems in batch.
- Synology C2 Hybrid Share: C2 server-side snapshots and local file- versioning provided by Synology Drive for easier restoration.
- Directory Server: support for read-only domain controllers to improve deployment security and flexibility.
- Synology Drive: expanded indexing capabilities, revamped mobile user experience, and improved monitoring/auditing capabilities.
- MailPlus: virtual DSM support, expanded management options, importing, and migration improvements.
- Virtual Machine Manager: storage I/O performance improvements and QoS capabilities.
And finally, a reminder that DSM 7.1 is the last major upgrade for most, if not all, of the NAS servers of the model year 2015 and older.
The takeaway
For those using DSM 7.1 beta, unless you also use the beta version of Surveillance Station 9.0, there's no reason not to upgrade your server to DSM 7.1 final today. The new version seems more streamlined and slightly faster, in my experience.
For those still having legacy apps that require DSM 6.2, it's time to probably find alternatives supported by DSM 7 and move on. While you can keep using DSM 6.2 indefinitely, you'd miss out quite a bit.
Again, here's the link to download DSM 7.1.
Synology Surveillance Station 9 is out now…
I got a update notification on my DS218+ With the latest DSM 7.1.
Would be great if you could do some articles or howto’s on SS 9….
It’s very similar to version 8.2, Henk. Almos identical in how to set up etc.
The lack of AFP concerns me. Performing Time Machine backups over SMB was not reliable. Based on other user’s reports, I switched to AFP and haven’t had any issues since then.
Good point, Tom. I haven’t noticed any difference. By the way, contrary to what Synology told me, AFP is still there on my servers after the update (it’s unchecked but can be turned on). I’m not sure if that’s the case with all servers, though.
Nice article again, Dong!
I am (on my DS218+) on DSM v7.1-42661 Update 1, which was released April 22nd, 2022.
Now Synology released v7.1-42661 on May 4th, 2022 (may the forth be with you! ;)).
An update would in my opinion mean that it update v7.1 (final). Seems a bit confusing now…
Should I install the final version which came out may, 4th? Or can I keep the version I have?
Thanks again!
Henk.
Any version that no longer has the “Report a bug” at the bottom of the web interface’s desktop is the official one, Henk. But yes, it isn’t very clear. The final version has been available to certain models for a while, but yesterday was the “formal” launch date when it’s open to all supported servers. It doesn’t hurt to update to the current latest version. 🙂
The 7.1-42661 Update 1 is an official one too. Downloaded it from the official Synology site.
But you say the 7.1-42661 Update 1 is the same as the 7.1-42661 without the suffix “Update 1”?
Yes, it’s probably the same, but the designation might differ from one server to another.