fonix232
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Posts posted by fonix232
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Thanks,
I was under the impression that xpenology was leveraging open source software (or at least not completely proprietary) and not an infringement of Synology license. Is that not so?
That's why I was curious about the surveillance package as it is quite clearly an "add-on" synology sell and should be compensated for.
Synology's DSM is Linux, with their own proprietary additions (funny thing, they do break GPL with their synobios kernel module!), including the app system, volume system, and the web UI.
What we do is take this specifically licensed product (because this together is a product), break that license and ToS, and install it on our hardware. Then we circumvent the protection employed by Synology to make it work (and also we add some extra stuff (kernel drivers for support, mostly).
So yes, we are infringing the license of DSM, because it says it can only be used on Synology hardware (hardware it is sold on).
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WD RED drives are pretty good, I'm running 3 RE3's right now (1TB only, but planning on upgrading in the future, to 4x4TB 3.5", 4x1TB 2.5", and 4x2TB 2.5". Also a nice little SSD cache for downloads to keep the disks sleeping if not needed immediately.
Hey again m8 sorry to bother you so much..
I was curious about this that you said highlighted. How exactly do you plan on setting up this cache disk for downloads? The idea sounds good that if for example your downloading something through torrents directly on the NAS, you do it just to this cache SSD disk to start with. Then if you want to move it to main folder on the HDD then the drives wake up from sleep. Instead of them awake all the time while just downloading.. Did I understand this correct? The main hDD drives will still sleep while downloads are going just to SSD ..?
Dont you also need to someway make the OS run from this SSD drive as well then? I mean the application for use of downloading for example transmission, its on the main HDD disks probably right (if say you have 1 volume based on 4 HDD disks and then 1 volume of cache for the 1 SSD disk). am I understanding you correct..?
Also if I want 4 main HDD disks and 1 SSD cache disk like you described I would need a motherboard with 5 sata correct? or at least 4 sata + a extra pci card with extra satas..
DSM has a built-in SSD cache feature, which you can easily use for this very purpose. It will load stuff that's accessed frequently (say, a torrent download), and use the whole SSD storage for caching.
And no, you don't need an extra SATA port. The motherboard you chose already has an M.2 key M (or key B?) slot, where you can add an SSD (which has improved speed over SATA, with select models you can reach 2000-2500MB/s write speeds).
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If I already own a synology NAS or buy a cheap second hand one could I use its SN and MAC on my xpenology build to install a legitimately purchased license?
Sure, you can, but first read license agrements. IMO, since license is given to a particual hardware, which is identified by pair of serial with mac, by using serial and mac on xpenology and using survillance licence you will violate license agrements. But it is just my opinion and you can ask synology support about that.
Let say synology will find a way to identify that you have installed extra license on xpenology, and will revoke all extra licenses with no refund? What will you do?
You're already violating ToS by using XPEnology, so...
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If I already own a synology NAS or buy a cheap second hand one could I use its SN and MAC on my xpenology build to install a legitimately purchased license?.
It should not matter what serial and MAC you use, since that is not used by the loader. You can still use the DS3615xs images, with, saj, a DS214 serial and MAC.
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Hi,
I'm really grateful for the detailed guides and info on here - THANK YOU.
I am building a Xeon-D based NAS so my hardware should be almost identical to the DS3617xs which has just been released.
My install will be BARE METAL.
What is the benefit or difference in using different DSM packages?
Jun advises the DS3615xs.pat with his 1.01 loader. His 1.02a loader has DS3617xs included.
I downloaded the DS3617xs.pat for DSM 6.1 (no earlier version) but am uncertain which DSM to install.
I have seen steps taken to get the latest DSM 6.1 working and am interested to know if there is a decent reason for me to do so...
Use DS3615xs for now, especially if you want DSM6.1. DS3617xs has a time bomb built in which renders your NAS unusable after ~12-24hrs.
Second query:
the bootloader sets a MAC address for my NIC's (10GBase-T onboard).
How do I wake the NAS using Wake on Lan (WOL)? is the MAC a logical one to fool DSM and do I need to flash over my NIC MAC address or will my PC etc just see the native MAC and I point my magic packet at that?
Still learning a lot about xpenology and the interactions of the bootloader and the DSM system.
Use your own MAC address instead of any generated one, and use that for WOL.
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so should Docker,VDSM , Mail , Office, chat,...etc
No, that's simply stupid...
Okay, maybe with VDSM you're right. But Docker for one is free software, so is the software combo that makes up Mail, et cetera.
But there's a key difference - QuickConnect is 90% service provided by Synology, running on something that is not your server. The rest, is is just packages of usually free software within a Synology wrapper, which requires little to no maintenance. Yes, even VDSM, since it's just KVM with a nice web interface...
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Nice choices.
For the case, I like Fractal Design stuff, but they did not have a case that would've supplied for my use-case scenario. The Bitfenix ones are more of a fit.
For the motherboard, it's also a great choice, however the H270 chipset feels a bit of an overkill. A B150 is more than enough in my opinion. But if you need the 6 ports, well, you need the 6 SATA ports.
CPU cooler: There's literally no need for it. I mean, the G4560 provides pretty good performance even on conservative governor, in idle. I never had it go over 70°C with the stock cooler that came with it. So I'd leave it out for now, and if it's too hot for your preference, you can always grab one and install it later.
RAM is also a nice choice, maybe a bit of an overkill though. PSU is fine, I believe you can connect up to 4 disks per Molex, though it depends on the PSU's total output on the 3.3V and 5V lines.
WD RED drives are pretty good, I'm running 3 RE3's right now (1TB only, but planning on upgrading in the future, to 4x4TB 3.5", 4x1TB 2.5", and 4x2TB 2.5". Also a nice little SSD cache for downloads to keep the disks sleeping if not needed immediately.
For the boot drive, I repurposed an "old" dual USB drive. I had a one year old 8GB Kingston MicroDuo, but since I swapped to a phone with USB Type-C, it became obsolete. However it's very small. I plugged it into one of the USB2.0 ports under the PS/2 ports, so it does not take away external expansion possibilities. But you can probably use something like this or like this.
The system boots from the USB drive every time you actually boot - this includes updates to DSM, system reboots, etc. Since it only loads ~15MB from the USB drive, it does not matter much if it's a USB2 or USB3 drive. However, some motherboards had issues with booting from USB3. When it goes to "sleep" it just goes into a low-power state, since a NAS doesn't really "sleep" per se. Best you can do is spinning down the disks after a certain time, and making sure the conservative governor is set (so CPU idles at its lowest frequencies instead of the stock "stick to highest freq" governor).
The boot process is pretty simple though:
- Boot system
- BIOS/UEFI finds boot disk, loads GRUB from it
- GRUB loads modules, and config
- GRUB config is set ot a 1s timeout, that happens
- GRUB loads the kernel zImage (3MB), initramdisk (7MB) and XPE ramdisk (2MB)
- zImage mounts the initramdisk and XPE ramdisk as root
- Syno scripts run, discover system, including if DSM is installed on the hard drives
- If yes, they load the system from there (this is after the XPE ramdisk is done patching), if not, it falls back to install mode
The way DSM works, the first time you "install" it, it initializes all disks in the machine. This initialization consists of creating a new partition table (GPT) on each disk, then creating a 3GB (2.7GiB) partition and creating a soft RAID1 volume out of these. This is then used as a boot device, mounted as / - basically, this is your system here. Yes, this literally means that DSM is on each and every disk in your system. So no, a faster boot disk won't make things faster, since a good majority of the system is loaded from all HDDs simultaneously.
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The 3615 does not have the time bomb built into the DS3617xs images. It's like Synology expected us to use it for XPE loaders. Which makes sense, since it's their best tower NAS at the moment.
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No, it is not possible to change the hardware "number". The models are tied to specific hardware, and all enterprise-level (so anything above the 4-5 drive SOHO models) dropped SHR support for some time now.
As for the root user, I'd rather use the "sudo su -" command. It will give the same shell as you're in currently, with the same PS1, PATH, et cetera, but as a root user.
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Out of this bunch, maybe the second one would be worth to buy, if it wasn't that expensive. For that price you can already grab an HP Gen8 MicroServer, which has a quite similar configuration, but you can add 4 3.5" full speed HDDs.
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For the CPU, trust me, it's working fine. I'm using Plex to transcode 1080p content to two-three devices at the same time, and while that maxes it out in theory, all file copying, etc. works just fine.
But pretty much with this config you can go with any Skylake or Kaby Lake CPU. I recommend the G4560 because it's practically an underclocked i3-7100, at half the price. It's slightly weaker than the one in the T20, yes, but it makes up by using considerably less power. You can check around with i3-7xxx and i5-7xxx CPUs but those will significantly raise the price.
What I meant with that sentence about the drivers means that currently Jun's loader only includes the most widespread drivers (and as far as I checked, no WiFi ones). So yes, for WiFi you need to build your own, unfortunately (but I'm already working on a loader which is based off of Jun's, but with more drivers and some small stuff changed
). Ethernet SHOULD work on both.About that chassis - way too expensive for a 4-bay one. I'd suggest going for the Silverstone DS380, CS280B or CS01B-HS. These are all NAS-oriented cases, with hot-swap disk storage, just like the HP Gen8 microserver. There are some other manufacturers, but it's rare to have an mITX case with more than 2pcs of 3.5" space. Your best bet are either these, or one of the Bitfenix cases (they go around 60-80$, and you can probably find a better deal on Ebay or Craigslist).
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Let me guess, you used the 3617xs image.
Try using the 3615xs, it should fix things in theory.
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No, I'm saying the G4560 is less powerful than the Xeon in the Dell T20 you mentioned. Single thread it is more powerful, but multi-core the Xeon beats it.
But both CPUs beat the hell out of the Celeron C2538 that ships in the DS1815+!
XPEnology can do pretty much the same a regular Syno device can. If the wireless chip is supported, it can use a bonded interface. Same applies for two or more wired connections (though the drivers for these tend to be there from the get-go, unlike with wifi stuff).
For PSU, the models in this range usually come with a 20+4 mobo connector, a 4-pin CPU cable, a 6-pin PCI power one, and a bunch of Molex and SATA cables. Since you want to use 4 or more disks, I think you'll need all of those, sans the 6-pin PCIe power cable, which you can just tuck away. The rest will be used any way
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Hi m8!
Excellent info here! I really appreciate it!
Ok so to begin with I now understand that I can go for a regular m-itx MB with 4 sata ports and maybe use a m2 card for a single cache disk instead.. My thinking for the cache is that the encryption on the fly probably beenfits a lot from a good cache drive right..?
I'm not sure - I don't use encryption, and I don't see how it would benefit home use at all. Unless you store some very sensitive data.
I definitly will skip EEC as I think you are totally right.. You are the 2nd person to tell me this about EEC in the last hour.
Im now looking at building my own machine instead.
Ive been looking around for an hour or so and heres what Ive come up with:
Fractal Design Node 804
The chassi is small yet you can house up to ten 6 x 3.5" . It seems most other m-itx chassi Ive seen mostly have like 2 or 3 3.5" spots so this seems really good..
ECC is good for servers where lots of data is in RAM. But since it's home use, no need for it.
That case, however, is an overkill in my opinion. It can house a full mATX board... There are some mITX cases with a lot smaller footprint, that can hold up to 8 disks - look around at Silverstone's cases, a bit pricier but they usually even have a SATA backplane, so less cabling! You can also go with Bitfenix cases, the Colossus is perfect (5+1 internal 3.5" HDDs, and with a 5.25" to 4x 2.5", you can add 4 more 2.5" disks) for this role.
Now about the CPU and Motherboard Im unsure.. For CPU they are pretty decent prices for 2 cores 4 thread type of CPU's like the
Intel Pentium G4560 3.5 GHz 3MB
However I dont know how it works with threads here in a NAS. I want similair or as good performance as the own synology DS1815+ for example. That one has a 4 core CPU so how you think this 2 core 4 thread cpu fairs vs a CPU like the one in the synology...?
Synology's DSM is simply Linux, with some small modifications, and a web UI. Nothing more. It can use all four threads no matter what. And yes, the G4560 is a bit lower power than the linked Xeon, but it also eats less power (I'm measuring around 25W with 2x 2.5" 1TB disks and the motherboard!), and is in general better with power usage.
Motherboards are more expensive then I thought.. cant really find a cheap one.. They have a lot of crap I dont need like RAID and Wifi.. they are like 120 USD each I guess thats the price u have to pay?
RAM: I guess best to go with something low profile and maybe just 1 RAM stick is best? Like a 8GB DDR4 like this for example:
Kingston HyperX 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 2133MHz CL14 Fury
And then we have PSU . Here Im not sure what watt and what certification I would need.. is gold+ good enough? Something like 350w? Not so many of them are modular unfortuanately..:S
am I on the right track here? or did I overlook something.. Thanks again for all advice!
For motherboard, well, prices are going up a bit. You can find the B250I PRO (not the gaming version!) for around 80$. Wifi can come handy, as a secondary network connection (syno can bind the networks together and use both to provide even better bandwidth). That RAM choice is good though.
And for PSU... Go for a bigger brand, and you shouldn't care much about modularity. It's a NAS, you put it together once, then use it as-is. Especially if you choose a case that has a SATA backplane. 300-350W is more than enough, my config is yet to go over 150W with 6 disks in total.
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Im actually looking in to this now. It seems better and mroe fun to build my own device.. But then everything will work flawless with XPEnology the same way a A20 or the microserver will?
The T20 config I saw is :
Dell PowerEdge T20 Mini Tower Server
Intel E3-1225V3 4GB
For 400$ that's a pretty low-end config. The only reason why you should go with that, or a Gen8, is because it's pre-built and ready to use. Though the HP has that really awesome hotswap 3.5" grid, so...
I read now that XPEnology needs 2 SSD for read and write cache.. so if I would want 2 SSD for this (i guess small 60gb would be enough?) then I can only have 2 HDD drives total? because it has only 4 sata ports right?
If this is true then I guess I need to build something that has a motherboard with something like 6+ sataports so 4+ HDD drives (will be using some sort of RAID-5 or synologys own RAID) and 2 SSD for cache. and the synology OS runs from a memory stick on USB port right.. ?
I also want EEC memory I think.. or maybe its not that necessary I dont know about that one yet...
You can use a PCIe SATA/RAID card, which can add up to 8 more devices, so no, there's no need for 6 or more SATA ports onboard. Actually, the amount of mITX boards that have 6 or more SATA is pretty low.
My usage seems similar to yours. Honestly, I don't think you need SSD cache. But even if you do, I think a single SSD will do, especially if you buy a high-speed one and use the motherboard's M.2 NVMe port on the back.
ECC RAM is completely unnecessary for home use. For one, you're keeping minimal data in RAM, so corruption won't effect you much (if you used FreeNAS with ZFS, that would be another case...). For two, it's more expensive.
Synology uses a USB drive to boot, yes. That drive contains the bootloader, kernel, and some modules. The rest of the system is installed on ALL disks (basically when you install Synology DSM on any hardware, or in other word, "initialize" a disk, it creates a small RAID1 partition spanning all disks, which gets extended automatically when you add a new disk. It takes up roughly 5GB from each disk at max). Since the loader is only used for booting, you won't even need a large one, or a USB3 drive.
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Hi,
You mean build my own server with own parts? Feels like thats gonna be more expensive compared to this deal on the T20 for example.. I can get the T20 for about 400 usd.
My requirements are minimum 4 HDD drives for storage. A SSD for cache / bios or whatever you need for xpenology.
Well basically I want it to be able to match or out-do the synology DS1815+ in performance. But several networkports are not necessary and neither is 8 drives..
I want it for storage (was thinking couple WD RED 8TB drives), streaming large files to mediadevices (like 50gb blurays that I wanna rip from my physical bluray discs so dont need to constantly find the disc) through plex or something. And also I want it to be able to encrypt data on the fly like the 1815+ can.. and maybe more stuff like IPcameras or whatever.. I dont know all I wanna do with it yet
I would have no problems building it from scratch if the parts are not too xpensive.. I can build PC's myself no problem.
Thanks again for all the help.
My NAS (see in my signature) cost me ~200$, including all parts. Though it is true that I bought the PSU and case used.
The HW itself is a lot stronger than the Microserver, and possibly outdoes the T20 (you did not say which config it was exactly).
You can go a bit higher and get an i3-7100, or a 6200, and still be under 300$ in total.
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You're probably better off with a custom built config. You can finetune it better, plus it's more flexible.
Can you list your requirements regarding:
- Processing power
- Memory-heavy applications
- Storage (how many disks, mainly)
- Space restrictions
- Network interface requirements
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I will let you in on it. Yes they did.
An update is actively looking at X15 serials.Both hardware and Docker.(I assume docker is due to $ with Lic)
VDSM wasn't affected.
It basically nuts your serial, has nothing to do with change, just points you out as XPenolpgy user
Interesting. Faked serial and MAC, yet Docker works just fine (would be funny if it didn't, since, apart from file sharing and proxying, I'm using it for ALL my services, including Plex, Sonarr, Deluge, whatnot).
Please stop spreading bullshit based on your anecdotal evidence.
Docker, btw, is still open source, and free to use for home solutions, and I doubt many use it in enterprise environments.
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I'd argue otherwise. My job is almost entirely PowerShell based and the only reason I'm any good at it is because of StackOverFlow, Technet and tearing other people's scripts to pieces.
We all have to start somewhere; as a Hyper-V user I, and the many Hyper-V users on site, feel overlooked in our quest to get on DSM 6+. Having some documentation and how to guides to at least get acquainted would make heller difference.
Also, I can't imagine a world where Syno aren't already aware of how their protection isn't broken. If notepad ++ can check changes between documents, you can be sure as s*** Syno have already tore Jun's loader to shreds and found every change down to the last byte. More importantly you'd want them to, so they can build a better and more protected system. Which again means more developers working against the product would make it easier to unlock the next release.
You do realize that there's a difference between "tell me all you know about how the loader works, step by step", and StackOverflow, right?
If he had any specific questions, I'd have answered them. Maybe in private, but I'd definitely answer. However he had no specific question, he was all like "tell me everything". I won't be spoon-feeding anyone with information.
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It misses a binary file, and some manual edits, both of which results are directly in the loader images themselves. Trust me, I spent the past week looking at how this thing works
It' was my mistake or the script try to compile modprobe?
That's one of the missing bits.
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For the sake of accuracy, Synology is not based in China. It's based in Taiwan.
Ah sorry. But my statement still applies. Because of the local courts, they can s*** on GPL.
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About "own bootloader"
If you check in Jun's open post there is link to script to build bootloader, i'm in stage to understand how it works, but i'm not skilled programmer, and, i'm not a skilled kernel programmer.
I have some problems, but if Jun don't want to share the whole process, we can only reverse his job.
The scripts miss the interesting bits
Well, there ARE references to them, but the interesting bits and pieces (patcher, etc.) are all excluded.Look better, it miss also another piece
Did you check scripts set? i have some questions about, due to my lack i don't understand how it works the part where i can run menuconfig
It misses a binary file, and some manual edits, both of which results are directly in the loader images themselves. Trust me, I spent the past week looking at how this thing works
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About "own bootloader"
If you check in Jun's open post there is link to script to build bootloader, i'm in stage to understand how it works, but i'm not skilled programmer, and, i'm not a skilled kernel programmer.
I have some problems, but if Jun don't want to share the whole process, we can only reverse his job.
The scripts miss the interesting bits
Well, there ARE references to them, but the interesting bits and pieces (patcher, etc.) are all excluded. -
Imagine that for 30/50$ you get all 6.x releases, all security updates included, with a bunch of drivers ready to use, and your drives a click away. Only 50$, which is pretty much half the price one would cash out for a new HDD.
I would be very happy at that price. I suspect at that level, there would be a risk of substantial cannibalisation of their hardware business but let's see what actually happens.
Doubt it. The 30/50$ would be for home use, where devices that are worth around 100-150$ go for 250-300$, and that already includes all the services. Enterprise, I suppose, will get a lot higher pricing (since it's used for making money), and a per-user system. I also guess that the home systems will be limited to 3-5 users.
DSM 6.1.x Loader
in Loaders
Posted
Hey Jun,
Thanks for the updates. Would the DS916 build work on, say, a G4560 too? Or HW accel requires not just an integrated GPU, but AVX 2.0 too? Also... The DS916+ only has 4 disks. But most of us use 6 or more disks. Will that still work? I see that there's a 5-bay expansion for that model, the DX513. Will the extra disks be detected as an expansion case or something?
Also I dropped your an e-mail a while back!