I have a Synology NAS hooked up (via a switch) to my Mac Pro. I also access the data on the NAS from my MacBook Pro and very occasionally remotely, but mainly from the Mac Pro.
The set up works fine, and has done for some time now, however the only thing I miss is the ability to search the network folders with Spotlight. There are various hacks around that are supposed to get this to work, but I've never had any luck with them. And besides, they need the folders to be mounted with AFP and I've had stability issues with that so I use SMB. (As a side note, under Yosemite, SMB is the default protocol so this is the way the wind is blowing.)
I found some third party software called Foxtrot Professional that works in a spotlight kind of way, indexing network volumes on a schedule. That's an option, but it's expensive and not as good as instant indexing from the OS itself like you get under Spotlight.
This all came up on another thread about something else, and a helpful user on there (garyleecn) suggested to me to use iSCSI on the NAS. I'm a software rather than a hardware guy so went away to do some research and try a few things out.
Sure enough, iSCSI works well as it effectively treats an area on the NAS as a mounted drive, but over TCP/IP. Spotlight works fine too. The big downside is that you can't mount the iSCSI "drive" on more than one machine at a time and you need a third party application to set up the connection in the first place, which costs quite a bit of money and I'd need two of these licenses.
So (finally) on to my questions.
garyleecn suggested that instead of using a direct iSCSI connection on my work machines, I should buy something like a Mac Mini to run OS X Server and connect that single machine to the NAS via iSCSI. He said I could share the folders from there. I'm guessing on the plus side that that would mean I'd only need one license for the iSCSI initiator and I'd be able to use the folder shares on any machine on the network, however my thinking is that I'd be right back where I started, i.e. with network shares on my work computers and again those won't spotlight. I'd gain nothing.
I've looked at the information on OS X Server and can see nothing about Spotlight. Perhaps if I have a Mac server rather than using my NAS as the server then I could connect happily with AFP?? Would spotlight work under those circumstances?
I'm confused. Perhaps I'm trying to over engineer a solution to what is a minor (although mildly irritating) factor in my chosen setup.
Any thoughts on all this would be appreciated!
The set up works fine, and has done for some time now, however the only thing I miss is the ability to search the network folders with Spotlight. There are various hacks around that are supposed to get this to work, but I've never had any luck with them. And besides, they need the folders to be mounted with AFP and I've had stability issues with that so I use SMB. (As a side note, under Yosemite, SMB is the default protocol so this is the way the wind is blowing.)
I found some third party software called Foxtrot Professional that works in a spotlight kind of way, indexing network volumes on a schedule. That's an option, but it's expensive and not as good as instant indexing from the OS itself like you get under Spotlight.
This all came up on another thread about something else, and a helpful user on there (garyleecn) suggested to me to use iSCSI on the NAS. I'm a software rather than a hardware guy so went away to do some research and try a few things out.
Sure enough, iSCSI works well as it effectively treats an area on the NAS as a mounted drive, but over TCP/IP. Spotlight works fine too. The big downside is that you can't mount the iSCSI "drive" on more than one machine at a time and you need a third party application to set up the connection in the first place, which costs quite a bit of money and I'd need two of these licenses.
So (finally) on to my questions.
garyleecn suggested that instead of using a direct iSCSI connection on my work machines, I should buy something like a Mac Mini to run OS X Server and connect that single machine to the NAS via iSCSI. He said I could share the folders from there. I'm guessing on the plus side that that would mean I'd only need one license for the iSCSI initiator and I'd be able to use the folder shares on any machine on the network, however my thinking is that I'd be right back where I started, i.e. with network shares on my work computers and again those won't spotlight. I'd gain nothing.
I've looked at the information on OS X Server and can see nothing about Spotlight. Perhaps if I have a Mac server rather than using my NAS as the server then I could connect happily with AFP?? Would spotlight work under those circumstances?
I'm confused. Perhaps I'm trying to over engineer a solution to what is a minor (although mildly irritating) factor in my chosen setup.
Any thoughts on all this would be appreciated!