HDMann

Did you try reinstalling the plex spk you were running? I've updated from 9.9.7 to 9.9.12 over the last few months by manually installing the new version from the packages app. I also reinstalled 9.9.8 this way on a DSM 5.0 beta test station using a backup internal disk from my DSM 4.3 rig (set up to test the DSM upgrade with plex and transmission software). With the manual install, once the package is loaded (from where I downloaded it) to the NAS, it shows "Upgrade" rather than "install" on the final "click OK to proceed" page.

Bearcat: thanks fr the update! I don't use http or ftp and port forward a very narrow range for Plex and Transmission (and non-standard ones at that). Good idea on the UPnP- I don't need it either but had it on by default. But your post also makes me wonder how the hacker gets in: brute force U/P attack?

I'll let you in on how I decided. I have good friend (we both do IT/IS as part of our daily job) bought a Synology 1813+ in late November. His initial outlay was $1000 for the DS, then another $1200 (at the time) for 8 3Tb WD red drives. At work I have a DS 410, and I also have an old CS 406 here at home. From my experience, Synology is a bullet-proof system, but is definitely limited by the Ram/CPU in each machine. As an example, I can easily serve files and run Transmission in the 406 but if I try to add "Sickbeard" it's too much (bogs the CS down). Add to that the high (IMO) initial price and I wanted to find a less expensive way to get the DSM software working for me. I tried a few other alternatives (e.g. FreeNAS and Ubuntu), but found that Xpenology worked great for the hardware I had, and I was able to finagle the power usage to not to be greatly different from my CS 406. It will take a long time to make up (in the difference on the electric bill) what i would have spent on a 5 disk DS, much less on what he spent on his 8 disk unit. This was the deciding factor for me, and as a bonus, an old 4-core 775 socket MB and chip I had lying around seems to have a great deal more power than his 1813... He's still trying to get Sickbeard and Plex running reliably. I will say that Xpenology (or FreeNAS) are defiantly for someone with at least a passing knowledge of Linux (command line) and building one's own systems. Hope this helps your decision. HD. -who thinks that $350-400 is the cost of a /new/ DS413j...

Very nice. This is just what I've been looking at for the last few days. I've been able to shave 18 watts from my system by changing BIOS settings (CPU detune and reduce the CPU core voltage) as well as removing 2 RAM sticks (2.7w each and don't really see an issue with RAM usage in the DSM monitor- 13% instead of 7%). Unless I change to a 45 watt CPU (and detune) or a Haswell setup I don't think I'm going to get much better. But I think this acceptable: a trade-off of using old parts against any power savings I would see for the $$ shelled out on new hardware. But 12w? Even 25Watts? Wow- that's impressive. I'm at 72w with 6 disks under load. I also have a Synology CS 406 to measure against, which is 40-42w idle and 52 watts actually doing some work (transmission files seeding and serving an M2TS movie to the TV at the same time). Given how much more responsive the Xpenology is vs. the 406 (or even the 411 I have), I'll accept the extra $6/month. Still, makes me want to check the operating wattage of an 1812+ a friend has.

Very nice. This is just what I've been looking at for the last few days. I've been able to shave 18 watts from my system by changing BIOS settings (CPU detune and reduce the CPU core voltage) as well as removing 2 RAM sticks (2.7w each and don't really see an issue with RAM usage in the DSM monitor- 13% instead of 7%). Unless I change to a 45 watt CPU (and detune) or a Haswell setup I don't think I'm going to get much better. But I think this acceptable: a trade-off of using old parts against any power savings I would see for the $$ shelled out on new hardware. But 12w? Even 25Watts? Wow- that's impressive. I'm at 72w with 6 disks under load. I also have a Synology CS 406 to measure against, which is 40-42w idle and 52 watts actually doing some work (transmission files seeding and serving an M2TS movie to the TV at the same time). Given how much more responsive the Xpenology is vs. the 406 (or even the 411 I have), I'll accept the extra $6/month. Still, makes me want to check the operating wattage of an 1812+ a friend has.

Without wishing to offend anyone... Let me give you my ideas on #2. It's the speed of the thing for that interface type. I didn't change any config settings for the network adapter relating to speed, but consistently get 100+MB/sec "out of the box" with my set-up (see sig). I attribute that to the driver (dual intel chip gigabit NIC's on the NAS) which are able to transfer at that speed between Win 8.1 (Asus X79 chip) and the Xpenlogy (asus X45 chip). However, transfer between the NAS and a KDLinks HD720 (again, gigabit switch, gigabit connections) is at ~10MB/sec due to their implementation of the NIC protocols (a sore point for KDLinks owners). As an aside, When moving large amounts of data (>150gigs), I need to have that on an SSD on the X79, I find. After a minute or so from a 7200rpm SATA III drive, some sort of saturation point is reached and the transfer often drops to 30-60MB/sec (not always, though). I think it's not able to continuously buffer through windows from the "rotational" drive. IMHO.

Thanks for the pointer on this. I figured out my USB drive name (parted --list) and ran from the command line. Question: If I auto-run this script after booting, would I need to disable the script and reboot in order to upgrade (ex. from 4.3 rev3 to 4.3 rev4) or to change parameters of the DSM (such as updating/adding new packages, adding shares, etc.)? Thx.

Re- stanza: thanks much! I edited the files and will give that a try. Cheers, HD

Quick update: After a week, the Xpenology NAS is running well- no issues affecting reliability. Currently running Transmission (2.42), Couch potato, Sickbeard, SABNZBD, Plex, Python 2.7.6-7, Midnight Commander ('cuz I'm Lazy), and Syno Antivirus. Shares working normally and streams effortlessly to my KD Links 720. About 40% of 12Tb used with Tv series and movies (Sd mpg/avi, 720p MKV and 1080p m2ts). The single issue I have is that I haven't been able to get the WOL after trying all options in the bios (S3 and S1 options as well as the "auto" power resume options). If someone has a NIC which does allow setting the "WOL" option (Control Panel>Hardware>Enable WOL), I'd order it and give it a try.

New here too, and have been testing this for the last week. I added my configuration to your doc and I hope you get a good amount of feedback. So far, my system is working astonishingly- I'm able to move files from/to a Win 8.1 setup across a gigabit network at 80-100 MB/sec. That's far faster than my DS410, old CS406 or D-Link DNS-321.