Every Synology owner asks it sooner or later: we already have shared folders — why install Drive at all? Because the two tools solve different problems, and choosing wrong in either direction creates daily pain. Here is the honest split.
A mapped SMB drive is the classic way to use a NAS: the folder appears as a drive letter, files open directly from the server, and it has worked for thirty years. Synology Drive takes the opposite approach — files live on each PC and sync to the NAS. Neither is the upgrade of the other. They are different tools with different strengths, and the proof is that most well-run offices end up using both, deliberately.
With a mapped drive, there is one copy of each file, on the NAS, and everyone opens that same copy. That single fact buys real things: file locking (a second person opening the file is told it is in use, instead of silently creating a rival version), zero sync delay, nothing stored on PCs, and perfect behaviour from applications that expect a real file server — including the big ones, like accounting and database-driven software. Setup is five minutes and every program ever written understands it. Its weaknesses are equally structural: no connection means no files at all, there are no built-in old versions, and a deleted file is gone unless the NAS has snapshots or a recycle bin configured.
Drive's sync model buys the things SMB cannot: files are on the laptop, so work continues on trains, at client sites and during internet outages; every Team Folder carries version history, so yesterday's good copy survives today's bad save; sharing links, phone access and multi-office ShareSync come along in the same package; and remote staff can work without a VPN if you choose. The costs are the mirror image of SMB's strengths: copies everywhere means sync conflicts when two people edit together, initial syncs take time, and there is no file locking for ordinary files — the last save wins.
One rule outranks every preference in this comparison: files that a program holds open and writes to constantly — accounting data files, databases, mail stores — must never live in a synced folder. Sync software copies files as they change, and a database copied mid-write is a corrupted database waiting for its moment; worse, two PCs syncing it will take turns overwriting each other. Keep such data on an SMB share (or on the proper server the software vendor recommends) and let only the application's own backup routine move it. Documents sync beautifully. Databases do not.
Notice the pattern: the question is never about the NAS. It is about how each kind of work actually moves through your week.
The mature setup on one NAS usually looks like this: Drive runs the document world — Team Folders for departments and projects, backup tasks for PCs, versions protecting it all — while plain SMB shares quietly serve the application data and the giant media library on the local network. One practical discipline keeps the hybrid clean: a given folder lives in one world or the other, so nobody edits the same file through a mapped drive in the morning and a synced copy in the afternoon. Pick per folder, tell the team the map, and both tools do what they are best at.
Watch the Synology Drive setup video to see the Drive half of this hybrid built properly — Team Folders, clients and backup tasks.
▶️ Watch Full VideoA Team Folder is also a normal shared folder, so it is technically reachable both ways — but editing the same files through a mapped drive and through sync invites confusion and conflicts. Give each folder one home and one habit, and keep the team to it.
For opening files, usually the opposite — synced files open from the local disk. The slow part is the initial sync and large changes travelling between PC and NAS. SMB opens instantly but depends entirely on the network and the NAS being up at that moment.
Honestly, maybe not yet. If everyone works in one room, on desktops, with application data — SMB plus a recycle bin and NAS snapshots can be a perfectly sound setup. Drive earns its place the day laptops, home working, or a second office arrive — and it installs in minutes when they do.