I have spent a fair proportion of my adult life fiddling with computers. Not just the “come on you bugger, work” while pounding on the keyboard type fiddling, but also the “come on you bugger, work” while forcing components into incompatible slots and generating showers of sparks type fiddling. It’s the latter that consumes the most time and costs the most money (two motherboards destroyed in an afternoon was my best effort).
When the fiddling was successful, it was kind of fun. Upgrading your PC so you could play the latest games was satisfying, provided the bloody thing sprung to life after the upgrade. If it did, what a clever boy I was. If it didn’t, I had no idea how to fix it. There is this sick feeling in the stomach when you realise that your collection of wires and components has died, and you do not have the skills to resuscitate it; that you may have to take the mess down to Tuk Com and give it to a spotty teenager who will eventually get it working, but wipe your hard drive in the process, install assorted malware and steal half your memory cards.
Eventually, the pain and grief outweighed the pleasures and I move to a Mac. Nowadays, I don’t need to pound the keyboard because everything just works. I don’t need to rip out components because it won’t let me, and because the beast already does everything I ask it to do at indecent speed. Happy times. So why did my computer area look like this yesterday?"
She who must be obeyed was at work and I decided to dedicate an hour in the morning to upgrading my two network drives, one of which contains the majority of my photo collection so is rather precious (yes, it is backed up, but not in a very accessible manner). Install a bigger hard drive in one of the machines and update the firmware in both; piece of cake. Hah!
Eight hours later, she who must be obeyed returned to find the room in chaos and me in a less than sunny mood. I will spare you the details; suffice it to say that the network drive containing all my photos could not be booted after failing to upgrade the firmware, and the hard drive upgrade for the other machine had also failed, leaving two network drives with flashing orange lights which meant, as the manual explained: “this drive is fucked, please dispose of in an environmentally friendly manner”. Eight hours, eight sodding hours, eight hours when I could have been doing something useful like playing Forza Motorsport 3.
The network drives are made by Synology, they have a good reputation, and work nicely with Macs. They have given me no trouble for the couple of years I have owned them, until now. Extensive searching of their support database and forums provided no help. I was at a loss. I was just considering whether inserting the drives into the rear end of a cat constituted environmentally friendly disposal, when I chanced upon a single post in their forums from someone who had been trying to upgrade their Synology drive from their Mac running Snow Leopard. It hadn’t worked, in the same way mine hadn’t. So I plugged the drives into a laptop running Leopard (minus Snow); and in ten minutes the firmware was upgraded and the new drive installed. Bastards.
Synology have not updated their software to run properly on Snow Leopard. Fair enough, but do they highlight this anywhere? Is there a notice saying “do not try and upgrade your Synology Network Drive using Snow Leopard, otherwise you will spend eight wasted hours tearing out what little hair you have left before actively considering crippling your cats with an anatomically challenging drive insertion procedure”? No they do not and no there is not. Bastards.
Comments 🔗
2009-12-06| Lloyd saysHey give them a break, their core market is probably providing devices for the “real” computer market and have been busy making sure everythings works fine on Windows 7 ;-)
2009-12-06| Spike saysI used to like you Lloyd.
2009-12-06| Billy saysHave to say that my 1 Terabyte NAS server is happily chatting away to all my Wintel stuff via wi-fi and ethernet - first time and without any pain at all - just like the 2 dedicated USB-2 connected jobbies. Wouldn’t dream of trying to fit anything internally though, learned my lesson there many years ago … strictly for the birds ..
2009-12-07| Spike saysI wasn’t in my computer, I was inside my NAS drives. Can change a drive in the computer in 5 minutes.
2009-12-07| Adair Hsu saysHi Spike,
Good day. I am Adair from Synology.
The issue you meet is mainly caused by the incompatilility between the old Synology utility and Snow Leopard. However, this issue is fixed in the latest Synology utility and you could obtain the latest v.1063 Assistant here:
http://www.synology.com/support/download.php?lang=enu&m=DS107%2B
Hope this helps and sorry for the troulbes you suffered.
If you have further questions or suggestions, you could also contact Synology Support again.
Have a nice day.
Sincerely, Adair Hsu
2009-12-07| Spike saysWhat a pleasant surprise. Just goes to show that customer service is not dead!
Thanks Adair, but of course I did download the latest Synology Assistant v.1063 before starting the exercise and can confirm that it can’t find a DS107e with a new drive, or a DS107e which is reset for a firmware update (I have two DS107e boxes) via Snow Leopard (10.6.2), but works as intended via Leopard (10.5.8).
Sorry about the bastards thing, a combination of frustration and comic effect. I still think your products are great and you have proved you go beyond the norm in support by trawling the web for customers with problems.
But there is still a problem with Snow Leopard and I think it should be highlighted.
Cheers Spike
2009-12-07| Lloyd saysYou think along the same lines as my wife.
I would laugh but with a fractured jaw and without any front teeth I can only dribble and regret not buying the Futura board and rig from Craig and getting my mtb shipped over instead.
2009-12-07| Spike saysFractured jaw? Dribbling? Tell us more, sounds bad.
2009-12-08| Lloyd saysI would take a good guess and say SWMBO has at some point in time told you ‘act your age’ or ‘grow up your not a teenager any more’. Well when it comes to mountainbikes and unexplored single track riding in the ranges of southern Phuket a man in his 40’s would be very wise to listen.
The words that my wife uttered that I liked most were, “I should have let you buy the sailboard”…. so in a week or so when I can talk without dribbling to much a trip to Jomtien to visit a certain store is in order.
2009-12-08| Spike saysOuch! SWMBO broke her jaw in three places several years ago when some guys knocked her off a bike while trying to steal her handbag; not a pleasant experience. Get well soon and get on the water, much safer.
2011-03-27| Jacob saysSynology is crap….how come you can’t find anything about how pathetic it is that they make you have a music/video/photo directory and you can’t view anything else????
IDIOTS! This is so how Asians are…they think they can force on you how they think something should be done. What kind of company thinks it can force it’s customers to classify everything they want to see on their television as either “music”, “photo” or “video”.
I feel like I got screwed also…I read for weeks LITERALLY WEEKS on what NAS to buy and nowhere but nowhere did Synology tell me “only buy our product if you can classify every computer file you have as “music”, “video” or “photo””. Makes sense right? I’m going to develop an operating system and you can’t create directories…you have to classify everything as “crap”, “useless” or “I should die” and you can NEVER CHANGE THE NAMES EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVERY DONE IS STORED EITHER IN THE DIRECTORY ‘crap’, ‘useless’ or ‘I should die’!!!!!
2011-03-28| Spike saysYeah, those Asians, such crap products. Toyota and Honda making cars that refuse to break down; Samsung making TVs that have to be so thin, Canon and Nikon making cameras that dominate the market. Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, and many others; all churning out shit that millions feel compelled to buy.
Oh, and that bitch about Synology? Rubbish. You can have any file structure you want. I just created a directory called “Jacob is a dick”. with a sub-directory called “and he should update his firmware or learn how to use his excellent Asian product” on my Synology drive.
2011-04-27| Spike is an internet d bag who defends tech companies saysYou need to learn to address the issue that was raised internet cool guy (this is why you don’t kill yourself right…because you go unload on internet scarecrows you don’t think will be there to defend themselves).
I SAID ASIANS TRY TO FORCE HOW THEY DO SOMETHING ON TO OTHER PEOPLE…I DIDN’T SAY THEY MAKE CRAPPY PRODUCTS.
And yes you’re right…they’re very good at taking the inventiveness of Americans and obsessing over it and turning it into a good product and then trying to take all of the credit (American who?) …Just like the Germans!!!
Also before you try to sound like such a smart guy make sure you’re not talking out of your butt.
You’re like that old useless “tech guy” who doesn’t actually know anything about tech…every time someone complains about their Synology I see the same Synology employees or butt fan boys like yourself rushing out and screaming “JUST UPDATE YOUR FIRMWARE JUST UPDATE YOUR FIRMWARE” and then just like the guy who was calling you bastards, UPDATING MY FIRMWARE DOESNT HELP YOU HAPLESS TECHNO WEENIE!
2011-04-27| Spike is an internet d bag who defends tech companies saysSo since it’s just the firmware why don’t you tell me how updating my firmware would fix my problem?
You pedantic fool…you don’t even know what you’re talking about you just come on to hate on people when you have no idea about their problem!
I checked again (I call it a Spike’s d bag check) and GUESS WHAT?!? I have the latest firmware and there’s still no way to change any of the names of the directories that show up through DLNA on the media server….BUT THANKS AGAIN FOR BEING A BIG INTERNET D BAG WHO GOES ONLINE TO TALK CRAP TO PEOPLE FOR BRINGING UP PROBLEMS YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO FIX SYNOLOGY BUTT BUDDY!
2011-04-27| Spike is an internet d bag who defends tech companies saysBy the way Spike…why dont you create another topic and instead of 70%…all the comments can be from you because you’re such a goddamn loser you sit on tech threads about obscure devices and troll it up… I can tell you’re British and you live off the state. No job, no life, just a cool tech thread that you’re very proud of because some intern from Synology left a comment on it.
Anyway enjoy pretending to be a tech expert when you have no job and spend all day bitching like a woman about your reason for going on with your miserable life (your crappy Korean NAS…it doesnt matter how good the hardware works if the SOFTWARE SUCKS!).
2011-04-27| Spike says
2011-04-27| Spike saysHi Jacob,
So good to hear from you again; your considered reasoning is always a pleasure to read. I like your clever use of both capital and lower case letters and the bit about butt buddy was so amusing. Did you think that one up yourself or did your friends in the playground help?
A couple of points though. You are right, I am British and I do not have a job. But I do not live off the state. Firstly, I do not need state support because I retired early having earned huge amounts of cash selling Asian and German made products designed by Americans, and secondly because I do not live in Britain. You might have spotted this from the title of this site, Pattaya Days.
You see, and this may be rather tricky for you to grasp, Pattaya is a city in Thailand, and Thailand is actually a country (not somewhere in Ohio as you may think you learned in school) which is in a part of the world which is not America. Amazing eh?
Hope that clears thing up my friend. Got to go now; have to do some heavy-duty bitching about some stuff I know nothing about. You have a really nice day now.
2011-05-03| Not Spike saysSpike
Enjoy wasting your time on this crappy little pathetic website that only gets hits because of my great tagline “Synology is crap”.
You’re so smart that’s why you’re working at Microsoft or Google right? I mean because that’s what the Waz, Bill Gates, and Lary Ellison do now that they’ve made it…try to unload on people who are asking questions on their crappy little pathetic tech blog article (that you leave more comments on than anyone else because you have no good information to give because you’re the typical internet sloth binging on junk food and unleashing your hate onto anyone who has the misfortune of stumbling into your sad pathetic world).
You’re right to feel like a superior douche geek..I mean while I’m doing stupid shit like going to business school, you’ll be here bitching at people and endlessly dictating your own worthless comments. Then you’ll still know nothing about IT but I bet you’ll still be wasting your pathetic life trolling your own crappy little blog pages hoping to find someone to talk shit to so you can feel a little less miserable about it.
Oh and by the way…I guarantee I know world history and geography far better than you do. Just because you read in some European newspaper that all Americans are stupid doesn’t mean we didn’t invent all the toys you obsess over. Asians always wonder why just obsessing more never makes them creative. Quit being so arrogant until you actually invent something and dont just copy something that a guy from Ohio invented.
And that my friend is why more people care about what happens in the U.S. than in Thailand…once Thailand invents modern medical and computer science and raises the life expectancy of my people by forty years then I’ll give a shit where Pattaya is at.
I really don’t see what this has to do with Synology being crap though…they’re wonderful machines if the people would just fix the problems that actually matter rather than ignoring and blaming their customers.
Lastly I hope your people will start treating each other better! (Us stupid Americans have learned how to not burn down entire villages to persecute other religions…like how the Thais persecute Catholics. That’s why all you fools are so arrogant..we’re too nice to you and you forget how we could treat you if we wanted.)
2011-06-05| Jacob saysI’m sorry for directing vulgarity at you!
I was angry that Synology is a young company and seems to put up a big pose of customer service but never actually helps solve a problem. Perhaps I jumped the gun because affordable home NAS is still a new technology. I also place the blame on Microsoft who is too worried about their stupid crappy products they want to force everyone to like to make their products that everyone already uses work with exciting new technologies like Synology NASes.
I shouldn’t have been racist either. Asians just happen to like math which makes them more likely to be a computer science obssessed Atheist would be Hitler like Bill Gates who wants to euthanize everyone except his friends. These people need to be forced (during their school years when it’s still acceptable) to learn about things other than math so they don’t end up so powerful yet so foolish.
This I think is the real reason why tech companies ignore their customers and instead chase wild tech dreams. It’s human nature and computers are obviously the new playground of the ultra intelligent. Thus rather than make Windows 7 recognize my goddamn NAS I get to hear about how Microsoft is launching 85 new technologies, 95% of which will probably bomb.
So forgive me for seeming to place all of the blame on Synology..American tech companies are at least as crappy and full of narcissistic foolish computer dorks!
2015-01-27| Grant saysGodwin’s Law! Spike one, Jacob zero…