Synology has long been known as one of the top players in the home and SMB NAS market. We've covered many of their products over the years and have always come away impressed by not only the performance, but also the ease of use. Late last year the company announced a major upgrade to the operating system and provided users the opportunity to beta test it.

Today the company is officially releasing DSM 6.0, a fresh update for all of their NAS devices that provides new features and functionality, the most exciting of which may be the ability to multiple virtual DSMs inside of a single machine, giving powerful segregation between instances, although it remains to be seen how this works, especially on some of the lesser powered NAS devices.

The following are highlights of some of the new features:

Virtualization for flexible resource allocation: The new Virtual DSM (beta) and Docker DSM packages enable businesses to run multiple instances of DSM on a single Synology NAS, allowing them to consolidate multiple physical servers and build a reliable, flexible, and multi-tenant environment.

The new Virtual DSM (beta) and Docker DSM packages enable businesses to run multiple instances of DSM on a single Synology NAS, allowing them to consolidate multiple physical servers and build a reliable, flexible, and multi-tenant environment. Secure and intuitive mail solution: The MailPlus and MailPlus Server (beta) packages allow your business to set up a secure, private mail server featuring active-active design for high-availability and load balancing, and at the same time give your employees a modern mail client for receiving, sending, and organizing messages with labels, separate inboxes, and filters.

The MailPlus and MailPlus Server (beta) packages allow your business to set up a secure, private mail server featuring active-active design for high-availability and load balancing, and at the same time give your employees a modern mail client for receiving, sending, and organizing messages with labels, separate inboxes, and filters. Private cloud collaboration suite: With the SpreadSheet package, you can create, edit, and collaborate on spreadsheets with other people — using just your Synology NAS and a browser. Note Station introduces an offline app for Google Chrome and makes it possible to create beautiful graphs, handy to-do lists, and presentations in a simple way.

With the SpreadSheet package, you can create, edit, and collaborate on spreadsheets with other people — using just your Synology NAS and a browser. Note Station introduces an offline app for Google Chrome and makes it possible to create beautiful graphs, handy to-do lists, and presentations in a simple way. Business-ready storage and backup: With the PetaSpace package, a single shared folder can now be located across multiple volumes and be expanded over 1PB, making it easy for IT administrators to manage large spaces. Snapshot Replication provides businesses with multi-site, up to every 5 minutes backups, ensuring optimal recover times if the unexpected occurs. With block-level incremental backup and cross-version deduplication, Synology Hyper Backup allows for multi-version backup to various destinations including Synology NAS and cloud storage.

With the PetaSpace package, a single shared folder can now be located across multiple volumes and be expanded over 1PB, making it easy for IT administrators to manage large spaces. Snapshot Replication provides businesses with multi-site, up to every 5 minutes backups, ensuring optimal recover times if the unexpected occurs. With block-level incremental backup and cross-version deduplication, Synology Hyper Backup allows for multi-version backup to various destinations including Synology NAS and cloud storage. Cloud and file syncing: The revamped Cloud Station Suite is now perfect for businesses with speedier performance, group permissions, and bandwidth control. Synology’s exclusive Intelliversioning algorithm keeps the most relevant historical version of each file while saving storage space.

The revamped Cloud Station Suite is now perfect for businesses with speedier performance, group permissions, and bandwidth control. Synology’s exclusive Intelliversioning algorithm keeps the most relevant historical version of each file while saving storage space. Anywhere access to multimedia files: The beautifully redesigned Video Station and DS video include offline transcoding for watching movies and videos anytime, anywhere. Plus, Synology’s array of multimedia apps work with more platforms, such as the new Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Windows 10.

The beautifully redesigned Video Station and DS video include offline transcoding for watching movies and videos anytime, anywhere. Plus, Synology’s array of multimedia apps work with more platforms, such as the new Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Windows 10. Strengthened security: For more advanced control over application framework, DSM 6.0 provides role-based access for non-root WebAPI. You can tackle authentication challenges with DSM 6.0's support for the 802.1X protocol, or save time and energy when executing your SSL strategy thanks to Let’s Encrypt integration.

The new version of DSM is supposed to run on hardware that goes back to 2011, including the DS411 that we reviewed back in September of 2011 and the DS212 we reviewed in November of 2011.

We're hoping to take DSM 6.0 for a spin in the near future and will share our results in the near future!

Source: Synology