Earlier this month, Synology announced at the 2021 AND BEYOUND online event that a new version of DSM is coming. With version 7.0 come improvements and new features. The beta is already out and can be downloaded for free.
“The future of data management”
DiskStation Manager is a unified operating system for all of Synology’s data management solutions, with version 7.0 being an all-around redesign. Synology sees itself as the “future of data management” and is focusing on new technologies for backup, storage and hybrid cloud. The company is committed to building on its DSM and moving it forward. DSM 7.0 builds on the key pillars of reliability, scalability, performance and usability. In the new version, the management interfaces and storage subsystems have been completely redesigned, and Synology has also thought about authentication. This should make working with DSM much easier as well as faster. IT maintenance is thus made more accessible and the work of system administrators is made easier.
Improvements and new features in DSM 7.0
The new smarter and flexible drive tool brings significant benefits when replacing a drive. If a drive is marked for replacement and a new one is then inserted, DSM clones the previous one to the new drive. To reduce the load on the system, the memory pool is not affected during cloning.
In addition still the function of the automatic repair comes. With this the remote administration of the storage pool is to be facilitated. If a pool is faulty, the drive must be replaced. To make things easier, after logging in, the pool can simply be marked for automatic repair. A technician replaces the drive on site and the rebuild of the array is handled by DSM.
In version 7.0, SSD caches can now also be easily added or removed during operation. Services are not affected by this and with the SSD Cache Advisor, a clean analysis of I/O usage patterns over a longer period of time is performed. This allows better suggestions to be provided to the user.
To this end, the subsystems have also been significantly improved in version 7.0. Version 7.0 delivers up to 80 percent faster RAID 6 performance, faster RAID repair that only repairs storage that is actually in use, up to 200 percent faster write back from SSD cache. Add to that better performance with SSD caching and the option to store metadata in the cache, as well as support for volumes up to 1 PB for archiving tasks.
Authentication more secure and faster than before
Synology Secure SignIn makes authentication more convenient and flexible than before. Synology Secure SignIn is a mobile app that allows system administrators to protect accounts without much effort. Through the app, users no longer need to remember passwords; the approval is simply done via the smartphone. In the process, the app can also be used as a second factor for 2-factor authentication. With the Synology account data backup, continuity is also ensured when the smartphone is changed. If one prefers to work with a USB security key during authentication, there is now FIDO2. Like the app, FIDO2 can supplement or replace passwords. The user has less hassle and more security.
To minimize latency and overhead, DSM 7.0 now supports Fibre Channel protocols. To go along with this, new host alias features are also introduced so that users no longer have to remember IQNs or WWPNs. This also makes it easier to set up permissions. SAN Manager thus replaces iSCSI Manager for unified block storage management.
Beta available now
The beta of DSM 7.0 is already out, generally available should then be the DSM 7.0 in 2021.
