Synology Photos vs XtreemFS

Synology Photos is a photo and video management service in DSM for browsing, organizing, searching, sharing, uploading, and previewing media. It requires a Synology NAS for private photo storage, and its mobile app can back up photos and videos to that NAS automatically. Users can share individual items or albums through links with passwords or expiration dates. Shared Space lets selected users collaborate, with access and editing rights assigned by folder. Organization tools include custom and conditional albums, automatic grouping, and facial and object recognition on supported NAS models. RAW files are supported; previews for HEIC/HEVC files and compressed videos require Synology Image Assistant. Mobile apps require iOS 16 or later or Android 11 or later; TV apps support Apple TV and Android TV. Chrome and Safari are recommended for web use. Synology Photos is free, with no paid premium tiers listed.

XtreemFS is a free, fault-tolerant distributed file system for general-purpose storage, available for Linux, macOS, Windows and self-hosted deployments. Files are replicated across storage servers, with automatic failover to a backup replica if the primary fails. Full or partial read-only replicas support immutable files and can be used to create caches across datacenters. The project says an installation can grow to thousands of storage and metadata servers by adding or removing storage servers. POSIX compatibility makes it usable as an NFS replacement. SSL and X.509 certificate support are built in, and the site says XtreemFS can run over the internet without a VPN. A Hadoop client supports use as an HDFS replacement. Listed uses include filer replacement, HPC and Hadoop clusters, VM block storage and cross-branch sharing. Linux distribution packages and precompiled Windows and Mac OS X clients are available. The FAQ says a single volume may hold up to tens of millions of files, with no known limits stated for volumes and services. The project is open source under a BSD license and is developed by Zuse Institute Berlin.