In this video I’m kicking off my OpenMediaVault 8 (Synchrony) series with an overview of what actually changed—and what didn’t—before you install or upgrade. I’ve covered OMV 5, 6, and 7 on the channel, and OMV 8 is a little different: it’s not a feature-explosion release. The developer was pretty upfront in the release notes that this is more of a solid platform refresh, and honestly, for a NAS OS you’re going to leave running for years, that foundation matters a lot. The biggest under-the-hood move is the Debian 13 (Trixie) base, which brings a newer kernel, updated libraries, and newer core packages like Samba, rsync, and OpenSSH—plus the long-term security support that comes with a fresh Debian stable release. That kernel bump is especially relevant if you’re on newer hardware (NVMe, newer NICs, better driver coverage), and you don’t have to manually tune any of it—you just benefit. I also cover the big compatibility headline: OMV 8 is AMD64 and ARM64 only, so 32-bit systems are staying on OMV 7. Then I run through practical UI and quality-of-life improvements (CPU governor changes, snappier user/group management RPC behavior, better “apply config” feedback, WPA3 Wi-Fi, USB network interfaces, and Time Machine share size limits), plus what to expect for upgrading from OMV 7 and whether it’s worth it for your setup.