Octavean

Parity check can take several days depending on the quantity of data, the speed of the drive you have and if there are other processes running on the OS at the same time. After it finishes just try to update to update 8. If that doesn't work then you can try a reinstall. Little update: The parity consistency check finally went to completion. Unfortunately updates would still not install. I shutdown the NAS to check the loader which is on an SD card connected to a USB adapter. Everything looked OK but the NAS wouldn't boot after that. The GNU GRUB menu would'nt show up seemingly hanging on a blank screen with blinking prompt. I eventually came to the conclusion that something was likely wrong with one of the HDD's. I had two volumes neither of which had anything but test data on it so I chose to remove all the drives for volume 2 and the system started to boot properly after that. Volume 2 consisted of 2x 4TB WD Red drives and 1x 3TB WD Green. I suspect the green drive was the cause of the boot issue and oddly enough the cause of the update issue. After removing it and starting the NAS again I was able to upgrade to update 9 without issue!!! Edit: So right now I created volume 2 again this time consisting only of 2x4TB WD Red drives (volume 1 consists of 1x 2TB WD Red) and it is currently going through what will undoubtedly be a lengthy parity consistency check. I think the one remaining issue is that any attempt to create a Btrfs volume results in an instant crash of said volume. I thought updating DSM might correct that issue.

Parity check can take several days depending on the quantity of data, the speed of the drive you have and if there are other processes running on the OS at the same time. After it finishes just try to update to update 8. If that doesn't work then you can try a reinstall. Thanks for the suggestion. With any luck the parity consistency check will conclude tomorrow and I can attempt to install update 8.

I have a DS1815+ configured to auto update and its currently running DSM 6.0.2-8451 update 8 according to Control Panel > Info Center > General The XPEnology box is just listed as DSM 6.0.2-8451 with no indication of updates at all. Currently its going through a parity consistency check which is going very slowly (days) and is only at about ~75%. Perhaps I should try again when (if) parity consistency check goes to completion. I'm using the Jun loader. My only other thought is to do an upgrade using the loader with the latest .pat file or do the same but try switching loaders. Unfortunately I don't see availability of any other loaders at the moment even if they are very similar. I don't think there is a problem with update 7 or update 8 though.

I was able to install DSM 6.0.2-8451 without issue. This was after doing the requisite reading in this and other threads. In other words I understand the need for due diligence and doing ones homework before asking for assistance. I also am very appreciative of the work and effort that went into the tools / tutorials that expedite the process for the less initiated (of which I am one). Unfortunately, after some research, I am still unclear on the proper procedure to upgrade my DSM 6.0.2-8451 install. I've tried a few different methods to upgrade to update 7 (and now update 8) but none have gone to completion. After downloading the latest DS3615xs.pat file from Synology to my PC attempting to upgrade the XPEnology 6 install from said file simply does nothing when using the manual option within DMS 6. Allowing the XPEnology 6 NAS box to automatically download the update will initiate the install but even if it displays 100% completion it eventually displays the following error: Any help would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance Oct.

I'm not in the position to try this yet but it has been pointed out to me (before posting this thread) that a Quanta LB6M 10GB 24-Port SFP+ Switch (with or without Dual Power Supply) can come in on e-bay for less then ~$250 USD. That is an incredibly cost effective and robust solution IMO. So that would be my go to option as soon as I am ready to cough up the ~$250 and risk a venture on e-bay. In the interim this or a VyOS solution with a similar purpose / configuration remains a possible option. Even if full 10GbE speeds are not attainable it's still a boon if one can go beyond 1GB speeds. For the here and now though I would only realistically need 10GbE speeds for my server and NAS. So a DAC link between the two and a single port SFP+ NIC on each is all that is really needed.

I'd also like to say thanks to Jun, Polanskiman and all who contributed. I found this tutorial simple and easy to follow and without these efforts I wouldn't have any option other then to go with a different solution. While I do have a Synology DS1815+ it's also great to experiment with XPEnology and DSM 6 is the best so far. I have some minor issues like one of my motherboard's controllers (Asus Z97-E / Marvel) doesn't seem to be supported resulting in the loss of two SATA ports. However, I figure I can just add a better controller card that is supported. Also btrfs doesn't work. Attempting to creat a volume with btrfs results in an instant crash of the volume but EX4 works fine. Maybe I need to an update but not sure I have to check the version that is currently running. Great stuff all around though. Thanks agin for making this so easy for the less initiated!!!

I came across this thread when looking into the subject of trying to get LAN ports to act as a switch in XPEnology / DSM: https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopi ... tl#p293971 To which I would add: Instead of using typical Ethernet ports one could add a few low cost Dual Port SFP+ 10GbE NIC cards to act as a cheap 10GbE switch. Then expand the process to more then just bridging two ports. Anyone have thoughts on this? Oct.

I'm guessing that is part of why the OP mentioned a VM. In a VM it should be possible. It's not the same thing as XPEnology though IMO. With XPEnology someone can take an older system and have a superior solution (not to mention cheaper) then an actual Synology hardware based solution. I have a Synology DSM1815+ which I purchased at or near the going MSRP which means it wasn't cheap and it's not necessarily better then a XPEnology solution. I also have a Synology RT1900ac. The Synology RT1900ac isn't expensive IMO at ~$150 and there is little to no real benefit in replicating the OS in the same way as XPEnology. It would be fun to see though. Yes, but not on ESX as specifically mentioned by OP. Something like QEMU should be able to handle it, but its probably going to crawl once you hit it with a real traffic. CPU emulation of different architecture is very costly resource-wise. It would, however, be interesting to see if anyone makes it possible to run SRM on some different brand router that has similar hardware. Yes absolutely,... It would also be interesting to see where Synology will go from here. What I mean by that is the idea of a hybrid Synology brand product including router functionality, Wireless access point functionally and typical NAS functionality would be unique to the market. The RT1900ac already has this functionality basically but to expand it to a 2 bay, 4 bay, 8 bay or more solution with an x86 / x64 processor and better storage management would be great. I don't see anything stopping Synology from exploring this. Hybridizing SRM with DSM in new products also makes it easier for the XPEnology initiative to make use of it. Still as it stands now, the RT1900ac is relatively cheap and is a good solution on its own. If one want's Synology SRM then simply buying the router is likely the best option. Its not like it cost as much as a halfway decent Synology NAS like the DS3615xs.

I'm guessing that is part of why the OP mentioned a VM. In a VM it should be possible. It's not the same thing as XPEnology though IMO. With XPEnology someone can take an older system and have a superior solution (not to mention cheaper) then an actual Synology hardware based solution. I have a Synology DSM1815+ which I purchased at or near the going MSRP which means it wasn't cheap and it's not necessarily better then a XPEnology solution. I also have a Synology RT1900ac. The Synology RT1900ac isn't expensive IMO at ~$150 and there is little to no real benefit in replicating the OS in the same way as XPEnology. It would be fun to see though.

The problem is the client. In my LG SmartTV I have a Plex client but I don't have a Video Station client. I hear what you are saying but maybe I am not being clear. I'll use an example. Hulu, for example, used to be accessible in two basic ways: Hulu and Hulu plus. You got more content with the pay version "Hulu Plus" and the free version "Hulu" would not work natively on mobile devices or smart devices like Smart TV. In order to get that functionailty you had to pay. I found this Hulu example to be a similar experance with my initial use of Plex. I'm willing to revisit this to see if I missed something but that was my initial experience. To be clear, Server to client streaming was never an issue for me if the client was a PC running the Plex x86 client. The Plex App for my Mobile devices and LG 4K UHD Smart TV all seem to require that money be paid and I'm just not into paying to access the Media I already have.

I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that. However, Video Station and Plex share much of the same functionailty. However, you can presumably stream to many different types of devices with Video Station and not have to pay for a Plex pass to do it. You can stream to many different types of devices with Plex. Plex pass is not required for this functionality. Perhaps you are right. However, when I was experimenting with Plex I could not stream from my Plex server to the Plex client app on my Smart TV without paying for Plex Pass and I also didn't see a way to stream to my iPad or iPhone with Plex unless I had a Plex Pass. Maybe there is a way but Video Station just worked with all of the above and far fewer hoops to jump through.

I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that. However, Video Station and Plex share much of the same functionailty. However, you can presumably stream to many different types of devices with Video Station and not have to pay for a Plex pass to do it.

Yeah, I have a Synology DS1815+ and couldn't find the Plex app in Package Center. It was OK for me though because I prefer Video Station. I'm sure there is a way to load Plex like Jman420 suggested. Edit: You can also run Plex within Docker in Synology DSM 6.0 as an option. This way you can better limit the resources that Plex uses.

Nice,.... There are definitely some missing features but it gives you an idea of DSM 6.0. I'm running DSM 6.0 on some native Synology hardware and like it a lot. It would be nice to see XPEnology move up to 6.0 as well,....

Last night I tried an experiment with XPEnology on an old HP EX490 which is a bit different then the older EX475 but might be similar enough. It wasn't a very clean experiment though because I used a 3TB HDD that I had previously initialized in another system running DSM. So technically the HDD already had DSM on it. The first important step is to put the XPEnology USB boot stick into the lowest USB port in the rear of the MediaSmart Server. Then the second important part step is to place the internal HDD in to the second to last HDD slot . If you place a HDD into the lowest HDD slot then the USB boot stick will be ignored and you'll never be able to boot with the XPEnology boot stick. If you don't have a HDD physically installed in a slot then you can't initialize a HDD and install XPEnology onto a HDD. Anyway, it booted fine with the XPEnology USB boot stick when I followed those simple steps or at least I think it did. I can zero out the HDD and try again to be sure but I don't think the results will be any different,...

I setup my XPEnology NAS as a test initially so I only used it to replicated data from my Server. Therefore nothing was lost. Lets get into the details a bit though: Hardware configuration is as follows: Intel Pentium G3258 Haswell Asus Z97-E (6 SATA Ports) 8GB DDR3 2x SI-PEX40064 4 port SATA cards 3x Rosewill RSV-SATA-Cage-34 Hot-Swap HDD Backplane (12 bays) Antec 900 Case 8x WD Red 4TB HDDs Corsair 750W PSU What was happening was that HDD's would occasionally show some I/O errors when adding a disc or doing some data scrubbing. A HDD might also crash. So in such a case I might remove the HDD and test it with WD Tools as a verification of what was reported by the DiskStation. If it was verified I would RMA the HDD provided it was in warranty. Either way the HDD would be replaced. After a while I started to notice that only HDD's in bays 1, 2, 3 or 4 would ever develop issues. Bays 1 through 4 are connected to the motherboard SATA ports of the same corresponding number. Bays 5 and 6 also come from the motherboard but are connected to the motherboard's SATA Express port. The rest of the bays are connected to the SI-PEX40064 4 port SATA cards. So after the last Volume crash caused by HDD crashes (using SHR-2) I eventually got a little feed up and bought a Synology DS1815. I loaded it up with same 8x WD Red 4TB HDD and everything has been working fine. The HDD were all checked when building a new Volume with SHR-2 and they all checked out fine. I'm in the process of loading up all the data I want to duplicate on the DS1815+ and am about halfway done sending it over the network. I have a few spare WD Red 3TB HDDs and some spare WD Green 3TB HDD so I have loaded them up in the XPEnology NAS. I'm in the process of extended SMART testing the last few HDDs in it before I build the second larger volume in it. It seems to be fine as long as I avoid ports 1 through 4 so far. I'll use this as a backup target for the DS1815+ which in itself is a backup.

Good info that,... This should probably be put in a sticky thread so everyone knows and can take a collective breather.

Good to know thanks!

Very cool. So you're using a SFP+ Twinax DAC which is copper not Fiber? What cable and what cards are you using? I'm sure there is a Windows driver for the NIC but did DSM / XPEnology have the necessary drivers already? Any additional work you needed to do to get it working? I was looking at some cheap cards but I am unsure of the connector type to get it working in crossover mode. Any details you could provide would be a great help. Thanks in advance. Oct.

Very cool. So you're using a SFP+ Winax DAC which is copper not Fiber? What cable and what cards are you using? I'm sure there is a Windows driver for the NIC but did DSM / XPEnology have the necessary drivers already? Any additional work you needed to do to get it working? I was looking at some cheap cards but I am unsure of the connector type to get it working in crossover mode. Any details you could provide would be a great help. Thanks in advance. Oct.

Yeah you can buy a Dell RT8N1 0RT8N1 MNPA19-XTR Mellanox 10GB Single Port NIC for about ~$25 off of Amazon and there are some other low cost options like HP as well. I didn't know that you could connect them together without a 10G Switch though. I thought I would have to pay ~$800 USD or so for such a switch at least so I passed on the idea. If I could connect them directly I would buy at least two 10G NICs and the necessary cable. For connections between servers or NAS devices it would be useful to help move data between them if a large volume needs to be rebuilt. So for example, let's say three HDDs fail in a SHR volume with two disc redundancy. After the failed HDD have been replaced the data is still lost so getting that data from another server or NAS as fast as possible is ideal. Even if it's a little bit faster then 1 gigabit Ethernet (due to HDD / controller limitations ect.) it's still worth it to me IMO. For what it's worth, over 1 gigabit Ethernet I've been able to hit the reasonable real world limit. I've seen it spike to ~113MB/s but typically see it more or less around ~45MB/s. It would be great for a high avalibility setup too if you could get that to work.

Very odd,... I don't have a fix for you unfortunately. If I were to guess, your fix might be similar to the process of adding drives beyond the default 12. Out of curiosity, what SATA card do you have and what motherboard? I'm using an Asus Z97-E motherboard and a couple of IO Crest 4 Port SATA III Controller Cards (Marvell Non-Raid) SI-PEX40064. Generally speaking I haven't had a problem with with drive numbering / position. Is it possible your motherboard has additional ports? Maybe an eSATA port with multiplayer?

Very cool,..... I look forward to reading it. I ordered one from Newegg recently and received it late this week. I haven't set it up completely yet but I did play with it a bit and made the logical configuration in the SRM. I just need to wire it into the network but I don't want to disrupt our internet service yet so I'll wait a bit. Maybe tomorrow or Tuesday.

I mean how WD Red 3 year warranty drives are stated to be for use with up to 8 HDD in a NAS / server whereas WD Red Pro drives with a 5 year warranty are stated to be for use in NAS / servers with up to 16 drives. Supposedly, according to what I can gather from WD promo info, the difference in number of supported drives has to do with increased vibration dampening support in the pro version. The implication there is that more drives increase vibration and that the WD Red Pro drives are better designed to handle said vibration without ill effect,.....(although this was no explicitly stated). So I guess my question is whether or not this is true? I have no doubt that we could slap in 20+ HDD of any type in one case but does this detract from the longevity of the drives due to increased vibration? In my case I have three Rosewill RSV-SATA-Cage-34 Hot-Swap backplanes with 4 bays each totaling 12 bays. I currently have 8 HDDs installed (2x3TB and 6x4TB) in Volume 1 using SHR2 for a total of about ~20TB usable. All HDDs are WD Red (non-Pro). I recently had to remove a WD Green 3TB, Seagate 3TB and Seagate 4TB due to issues. I'm at the point where I might want to start going beyond 8 HDDs so I was wonder if there was anything to this. I have been interested in the WD Red Pro drives largely due to their longer warranty but I am a little reluctant to pay more for the Pro version and I already have a bunch of relatively new non-Pro,....

At about ~$150 USD the Synology RT1900ac is probably one of the more economical wireless routers. It's also not one of the fastest either. Theoretically though,..... Maybe the ARM platform doesn't necessarily have to make such a project impossible. I'm only speculating here mind you but if you can run a VM within XPenology and emulation an ARM processor based platform then perhaps you can get SRM working virtually.