Internet Small Computer Systems Interface is great tool if your NAS supports it. Particularly for video games and high end software, a basic network share is not sufficient. iSCSI lets you serve up a part of a NAS drive at "block level" directly to another computer which can act like a local disk drive.
- Open iSCSI manager in Synology
- Create a LUN (Logical unit number)
- On Windows, open "iSCSI Initiator" under Administrative Tools
- Type the IP address of your NAS
- The LUN should be found automatically. Connect to it.
- Now open Disk Management (search for "Create and format hard disk partitions" in the start menu)
- You should see your unformatted disk. Format it and assign a drive letter. Done! Windows will handle connecting to it for you.
I've tested and use this for my Steam library and Battle.net games, which I don't need when my laptop is not home anyway. Ethernet or high end WiFi is probably necessary.
My 'local' disks on a laptop with only 250GB SSD storage.
Here's how they look. A: has my steam library and Battle.net games