bearcat

Does your NAS have the correct date and time ?

@estrichleger you may try to "clean" the USB stick, using diskpart with the "clean" command, before rewriting it and try to boot once more. btw: what bootloader are you trying to use?

1 - as you have figured out, you must edit the vif/pid to reflect the values of your own USB stick. 2 - If there is any old windows/*nix partitions on your HDD, you might get an error, you can "clean" it, using ie. "diskpart" from windows.

https://xpenology.com/forum/announcement/2-dsm-serial-number-please-read/

@Barbapapa are your drives configured as AHCI ? What bootloader and DSM are you trying to use it with?

@sakko This community is in fact very helpful, but some of the users are not... Thy don't even bother to specify the hardware they are using, and have problems with, can you believe it ? Like, what make and model of the mainboard, what BIOS level, and they want anyone else to google and find the nic they have on their mb... go figure...

@Dire What BIOS version are you using ? and is it an original HP bios or one of the "enhanced" floating around?

@rkoperdak I allready got that it was an AMD, but wich one? They have been making CPU's for a while.... And, what mainboard are you using, make and model?

As long as the USB drive is big enough to host the both the esxi host, and a "datastore" (or using 2 USB devices?) you can run the actual VM and the virtual bootdrive (50MB) from USB ,and pass through the remaining drives. Do you have any free internal SATA ports in the server? Then you could add a SSD and use for host and datastore.

You could use your USB stick to host and run your Esxi

I don't see why not, as you are still syncing "data", the content should not matter. If you don't encrypt data saved in the cloud, why do you worry about your data if the nas is stolen? Any data "in the cloud" could be stolen / leaked anyways.... If you look here you can see how to enable client-side data encryption for Cloud Sync.

Easy way out might be installing a intel based nic, one of those supported in DSM 6.2.1, and use Jun's bootloader 1.03b to install DSM, doing a migration / recovery ?

Physical access to the server = passwords can/will be broken 💣 Precaution = keep your server safe and lock your doors😏(aka encrypt your data).

What CPU do you have?

@tomsauy If you need a small case, with space for more HDD's, you can try to find a Lian Li PC-Q25 and a PSU that fit's.

@roxlol As mentioned above, you can't. What you have installed on the USB drive is just the bootloader, the actual DSM is installed on your harddrive(s).

@viper359 You might need some form of videocard, internal or external, for you to do any modifications in the BIOS.

1 - identify the nic used in your NUC. 2 - verify that your nic is compatible with the DSM version you are planning to install. 3 - boot from your prepared USB stick, and manually install the .pat for the DSM version you are installing Your assumtion is correct, installing DSM on the disks, with a newer build than on the bootloader, can "destroy" your setup, if the drivers are not compatible. edit: 4 - in regards of the serial, as long as you only have 1 running, just keep the default dummy serial, or "make" a new one based of it.

- Outcome of the installation/update: SUCCESSFUL - DSM version prior update: None, clean "online" install (automatic download of .pat) - Loader version and model: JUN'S LOADER v1.04b - DS918+ - Using custom extra.lzma: NO - Installation type: BAREMETAL - MSI B85M-E45, CPU: i3-4130

@JJJL After reading up on VROC here I doubt it will work. What HW are you planning to use?

@klutch14u Good Let's see if I can explain it, based on my memory... ( as in: I might make an error..) The VM comes with a SCSI based disk, used only for the bootloader. This allows you to get it going (or should I say booting?). (this equals the USB boot drive used on baremetal systems). For you to install any packages (apps), you will need to add 1 or more "disks" to be used for your storage. This could be virtual drives, RDM or passthrough, depending on your needs. On this disk (disks), you will have to create your first volume, this is where you will install any add-on apps, like vmtools. Next, you can make some shares, like your NFS storage for Esxi. In regards to my nick, it's a long story. boiled down to this:

@klutch14u in partition 0 of the synoboot.img, see my other reply.

- Outcome of the installation/update: SUCCESSFUL - DSM version prior update: DSM 6.2.1-23824 - Update 1 (clean-install) - Loader version and model: JUN'S LOADER v1.04b - DS918+ - Using custom extra.lzma: NO - Installation type: BAREMETAL - AsRock Q1900-ITX

@klutch14u Inside the zip file, there is 2 files, 1 of them is "synoboot.img", use OSFMount to mount partition 0 (as writable), your will the folder \grub where "grub.cfg" is located. (default setting is "set mac1=0011322CA785")

@klutch14u I fully understand what you want, and I have been doing some of the same thinking In the end, (at least for the time beeing) I ended up with a baremetal DSM install on a N54L, providing NFS datastorage to my G8 running as esxi host. If you would like to give DSM another go, there is a clean and easy way to get you going with 6.1.7 (DS3615xs based), supporting VXMNET3. I used that to install some testVM's on Esxi 5.5, with no problems, You might be able to upgrade it to use DS3617xs, that with DSM 6.2, supports NFS 4.1 multipathing for load balancing and network redundancy to fully support VMware vSphere 6.5. Due to my 5.5 setup, I have not yet had time to to find an upgrade path... Another thing you might have a look at, is StarVind VSAN if you can use the free version.