Connecting Synology DS212j direct to iMac?

Jonzjob · Nov 27, 2014

I have some video that I want to transfer some video from a USB2 external HDD via my iMac, running Mavericks, to my Synology DS212j NAS box. Doing it via my Orange Livebox router will take a lifetime. I have been in touch with Orange France help line and they assure me there is no way of speeding anything in the Livebox.

What I would like to do is to connect the NAS directly to the iMac by an ethernet cable. I have tried, but have had no success.

The ethernet cables, Mac to router, 5 metres long. Router to NAS box 1 metre, cat 5e.

I have tried transferring a folder direct from the Macs internal SSHD and it gets to about 1.6 meg/sec. It should be capable of up to 100 meg/sec?

I have no idea where to start, so if anyone can help this thicky, in single syllable words if possible I would be very grateful!!

Lifeisabeach · Nov 27, 2014

As far as I know, you really can't. These Synology Diskstations are in fact little computers. They aren't a "simple" external hard drive that you can plug in and let your desktop access like any other hard drive. The transfer speeds aren't as bad as you seem to think. I have a Diskstation that I regularly update with my media library using FTP and my transfer speeds are just fine. However, the weak link here is your external USB 2 HDD. You can't get your files off that fast enough to saturate your ethernet connection. Even if you could, it'd be more practical to connect your external HDD to your Diskstation and copy the files directly off that, assuming the HDD is formatted using a file system that it can read natively.

Jonzjob · Nov 27, 2014

It is possible with a Synology unit, but I have no idea as to how to do it? The idea is to try to isolate the bottleneck. You can install them by direct connection as well, but I did mine via the router.

Lifeisabeach · Nov 27, 2014

Jonzjob said:
It is possible with a Synology unit, but I have no idea as to how to do it?

How do you know it's possible? Please post the source of your information.

Jonzjob · Nov 29, 2014

Sorry for the delay, but I have been trying to find the info again, but as normal on the web, it's disappeared? If/when I find it I will post it.

Lifeisabeach · Nov 30, 2014

Jonzjob said:
Sorry for the delay, but I have been trying to find the info again, but as normal on the web, it's disappeared? If/when I find it I will post it.

No sweat. It just may give a clue as to what to do.

I forgot to mention that you could plug the ethernet cable direct from the Synology Diskstation into your Mac, and set up the Mac to act like the router. That's called an ad-hoc network. Here's a link to a tutorial. Scroll down to the part for an ethernet (wired) connection.
MacLife 101: How to create an Ad-hoc network | Mac|Life

Doing it this way, you'd still access files on the Diskstation as you normally do now, but you are completely bypassing the router.

Jonzjob · Nov 30, 2014

That is exactly what I was trying to do in my original post, plug the iMac directly into the NAS box with an ethernet cable.

I have just tried your link and the 101 page, but no luck I'm afraid.. I even tried selecting other options, but no luck there either.

I am trying yet again to transfer a video file of 93 meg from the SShd internal disk on my Mac, via the router, and the only LAN speed I have seen is 1 kb, yes, 1 kb frequently dropping to zero when the processor % leaps up to 20% usage!!.

At least when you bang your head against a wall the headache goes away after you stop, this doesn't

Lifeisabeach · Dec 1, 2014

Jonzjob said:
That is exactly what I was trying to do in my original post, plug the iMac directly into the NAS box with an ethernet cable.

Oh... I see now. My bad. i thought you were trying to use a USB cable and treat it like an external hard drive. :Oops:

I have just tried your link and the 101 page, but no luck I'm afraid.. I even tried selecting other options, but no luck there either.

I hate to tell you this, but I just plugged in my Diskstation's ethernet cable directly into my iMac and it automatically picked it up. I didn't even need to set up an ad-hoc network and I have no file sharing options enabled on the Mac. My iMac is still online via wi-fi and I'm transferring a 5 GB movie to the Diskstation over ethernet now. Aaaaaaand.. that took under 2 minutes.

What services do you have enabled on the Diskstation? Make sure you have "Mac File Service" enabled in the Diskstation's Control Panel under File Services. You can then access the Diskstation's drive directly via the sidebar item in Finder, under "Shared".