One Synology box can serve files four different ways at once — SMB, SFTP, FTP/FTPS and TFTP — all reading the same folders and answering to the same user accounts. Here is the full setup, in the same order as the video.
One box, four doors. A Synology NAS already sitting in your office or home can serve files over SMB for Windows PCs, SFTP for secure transfers, FTP/FTPS for older tools, and even TFTP for network boot and device firmware jobs — all from the same shared folders and the same user accounts. In the video, every one of these services is switched on inside DSM, on a Synology running under VMware. This guide follows the same build order: services first, then people, then the test from a real PC.
Log in to DSM in your browser by typing the NAS IP address, then open Control Panel and click File Services. This one page holds SMB, FTP and TFTP. SFTP lives one page away, because on Synology it rides on the SSH service — we come to it in step 4. While you are on the SMB tab, also tick Hide shared folders from users who do not have permission in the advanced settings. It costs nothing, and people stop seeing folders they cannot open anyway.
SMB is the door every Windows PC already knows how to knock on.
That is the whole job. No restart, no extra package.
Open the FTP tab and tick Enable FTP service (No encryption) only if something on your network truly needs plain FTP. Then tick Enable FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS) as well, so clients that support encryption can use it. Plain FTP sends the password as readable text — treat the plain door as a LAN-only legacy option, never as the main entrance. Note the passive port range shown on this page (the default range starts at 55536): if FTP ever has to cross your firewall, that whole range must be allowed too, not just port 21.
SFTP is not on the File Services page. Go to Control Panel → Terminal & SNMP, tick Enable SSH service, keep the port as 22 for now and click Apply. Enabling SSH is what gives DSM its SFTP server, and it uses the same DSM user accounts and the same folder permissions. One honest warning: SSH also means a terminal login exists on the box. On DSM only administrators can open a terminal session, but SFTP file access follows each user's application permissions — check those in the next step before you announce the address to anyone.
The video enables TFTP as an optional extra, and optional is the right word. TFTP has no username, no password and no encryption — anything on the network can read the folder you point it at. Its honest jobs are narrow: PXE network booting and pushing firmware or config files to switches and phones. On the TFTP tab, tick Enable TFTP service, point the root folder at a dedicated shared folder that holds only boot and firmware files, and leave it off the day that job ends.
Go to Control Panel → User & Group → Advanced and tick Enable user home service. DSM now gives every account a private home folder that only that user (and admins) can see. This is what turns a shared dumping ground into a real file server: shared folders for teams, a home folder for each person.
Still in User & Group, click Create and make one account per person — never one shared login for the whole office. For each user:
Do not declare victory from the DSM screen. From a Windows PC:
\\192.168.1.50 (your NAS IP) — the shared folders should appear after login; right-click one and Map network drive if you want a drive letter22 and the same username — upload and download one test fileAll four doors open, with the right files visible for that user and nothing more? The server is done.
File Services, user creation, quota setting and the WinSCP SFTP test — the complete build, step by step on screen.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo. One Synology NAS runs all four services at the same time, over the same shared folders. You enable each one in DSM, and the same user accounts and permissions apply at every door.
On Synology, SFTP is part of the SSH service. You enable it under Control Panel, Terminal and SNMP, by ticking Enable SSH service. After that, SFTP works on port 22 with normal DSM user accounts.
Plain FTP is not encrypted — the password and the files travel as readable text. Inside a trusted home or office LAN it is a tolerated legacy option, but the safer habits are SFTP or FTPS, and plain FTP should never be opened to the internet.