Synology NAS as Your Private Cloud Solution for Small Teams

A Synology NAS is storage first, and most businesses buy it for that. What's less well known is that the same box can also act as your own private cloud: file sync and sharing, browser-based documents, team chat, calendar and even email, all running on hardware you own instead of a subscription you rent. For a small team with file-heavy work, confidential client material or unreliable internet, that can be a genuinely good fit. It isn't a drop-in replacement for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, though, and it needs to be secured properly. This guide covers both sides.

What "private cloud" means here

Synology's DiskStation Manager (DSM) runs installable packages on top of the NAS. They give you the everyday cloud services teams expect (sync, sharing, editing, chat) but use the NAS's own storage and processing, so your files, messages and mailboxes stay on your own hardware. Which packages run well depends on the model, its memory and how many people use it, which is the main sizing point later in this guide.

The DSM toolkit

• Synology Drive is file sync and sharing, with team folders, file locking, version history and desktop and mobile clients. Synology lists it as licence-free. Each Drive client can sync up to 500,000 files and keep up to 32 versions per file, per Synology's specifications. It's the closest equivalent to Google Drive or OneDrive.
• Synology Office is a browser-based editor for documents, spreadsheets and slides, with real-time co-editing, comments and mentions. It's licence-free, imports and exports Microsoft Office formats such as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx, and exports PDF. Macros aren't listed as supported, and version history isn't kept for Office files in Drive, so treat it as a capable everyday editor rather than a complete Office replacement.
• Synology Chat offers channels, threads, guest users and optional message encryption, and is licence-free. Direct conversations are capped at 9 members; larger groups use channels.
• Synology MailPlus is a self-hosted mail server with SPF, DKIM and DMARC support and built-in spam and virus filtering. Synology's licensing includes 5 accounts free, with paid packs beyond that. Running your own mail is a bigger commitment than the other packages (see the limitations below).
• Calendar and Contacts sync over the standard CalDAV and CardDAV protocols, so they work with Apple Calendar and Thunderbird as well as Synology's own apps.
• Synology Photos groups photos by face, place and tag.
• Active Backup for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace is licence-free and backs up a cloud suite's mailboxes and files to the NAS, useful if you keep a cloud suite and want an independent copy.

What it does well

• File-heavy teams. Drive with versioning, file locking and team folders suits accounting, design, engineering and advisory work that lives in shared folders.
• Confidentiality. Files, chat and mail stay on your own hardware. That helps with client confidentiality, but it doesn't by itself make a setup PDPA-compliant: access control, logging and backup still have to be built and tested. Our PDPA storage article goes into that.
• Working through outages. Files on the local network stay reachable when the internet drops, which matters at Sabah sites where connectivity is unreliable. We moved a Sabah accounting and advisory firm of about 30 staff off Google Drive onto a Synology NAS, using Synology Cloud Sync, and the result was no ongoing cloud storage subscription for that service and staff able to keep working through internet outages. The case study has the detail.
• No per-user licence for the core packages. Drive, Office and Chat are licence-free according to Synology, so costs don't scale with headcount the way a per-seat subscription does (MailPlus beyond 5 accounts and the hardware itself are the exceptions).

Where it falls short of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace

• Editing depth. Synology Office covers everyday documents well, but macros aren't supported, spreadsheet size is capped by the NAS's memory (2 million cells on models with under 4 GB, 5 million with 4 GB or more, per Synology), and it isn't built for complex workbooks. Teams that depend on advanced Excel features will still need a desktop Office licence.
• Email. Self-hosting mail means you own deliverability, spam filtering, uptime and security. Many small businesses are better served by hosted mail, with the NAS handling files and chat.
• It's one site. A NAS is a single location. Without a second copy elsewhere, a fire, theft or a failed controller takes everything with it. RAID protects against a disk failing; it isn't a backup.
• You are the administrator. Updates, permissions, storage health and security all become someone's job. A cloud suite carries that burden for you; a NAS hands it to you.
• Performance depends on the model. Synology's own product pages give recommended user counts that differ widely between models: for example, 10 recommended Drive users on one compact two-bay model and 80 on a larger five-bay one. Exceeding the recommendation isn't blocked, but Synology notes it may slow response times.

Remote access, done safely

The biggest risk with a NAS that doubles as a private cloud isn't the software, it's how it's exposed. A NAS reachable from the internet with weak credentials is a target. Synology has said in a 2019 advisory on ransomware that the attacks it investigated succeeded through brute-forced admin credentials rather than a software vulnerability, and its guidance is to:

• disable the default "admin" account and use strong, unique passwords
• turn on Auto Block, the built-in firewall and 2-step verification
• run Security Advisor regularly
• enable snapshots, including immutable snapshots where the model supports them, so a compromised account can't delete recovery points

For access from outside the office, prefer a VPN, or Synology's QuickConnect service, which doesn't need port forwarding. Synology notes that relayed QuickConnect traffic may be slow, and that letting the router create port-forwarding rules automatically for it may expose the NAS. As a rule, DSM's login page shouldn't sit open on the public internet.

What a good setup looks like

A Synology private cloud works best when:

• roughly 5 to 50 staff work mostly in shared files
• client confidentiality matters, or internet reliability is a real problem
• someone (in-house or an IT provider) keeps it patched and monitored
• there is an offsite or second backup copy

Many businesses run it alongside a hosted suite: cloud mail and day-to-day editing where that suits, with the NAS holding the files that need a local copy and a tested restore.

How Hakobi helps

We're an authorised Synology reseller. We size the NAS to your headcount and workload, set up Drive, access control and remote access, and put the offsite backup in place. Our Backup & Disaster Recovery service covers the second copy, and Managed IT Services covers keeping it patched and monitored. More on the platform is on our Synology partner page. Pricing depends on the model, capacity and scope, so request a quote and we'll scope it from there.

Sources: Synology Drive and its specifications, Synology Office and its specifications, Synology Chat, MailPlus licensing, Active Backup for Microsoft 365, DS225+ and DS1525+ product pages, Synology's 2019 ransomware statement, Synology.