Possible to Install DSM to a M.2 SSD?

[Octavean]

I was simply wondering if it would be possible to install the DSM to an M.2 SSD as a boot drive? This way a SATA port is freed up for a RAID array / storage volume.

 

I'm assuming its bad practice to have the drive that the system partition is on as part of a SHR / RAID array.

[MarsManden]

DSM is installed on all your disks anyway, so no need for a M.2 SSD.

That's part of the design in DSM - nothing you can do about it.

[Octavean]

That's what I thought since I recall reading it somewhere. However, I created a SHR volume consisting of:

 

3x3TB WD Red HDDs

 

I also had

 

1x2TB WD Red HDD uninitiated (which I have since removed)

Crucial 128GB SSD

 

I initially installed on the Crucial 128GB SSD because it was the only drive in the system. I didn't even think I was going to be able to get it to work but the install / setup was surprisingly easy. Eventually I didn't see the need for the Crucial SSD because I figured the DSM was replicated on the other drives. So I shut down and pulled the Crucial SSD but after restarting it I couldn't find the NAS on the network. I waited a while then shut it down and reconnected the Crucial SSD. It booted after that but Storage Manager cited the following error:

 

"System is healthy. Failed to access the system partition. Please repair it by clicking the following link. (repair)"

 

I didn't do the repair (yet) and started to think I was wrong and that the system was dependent on the Crucial SSD to boot. Maybe I should have just waited it out longer and it would have eventually showed up on the network? Either way the NAS clearly didn't like the removal of the Crucial SSD. Usually it boots fairly quickly and without issue.

 

Full specs are as follows:

 

Intel G3258 (Dual Core 3.2GHz Haswell LGA1150 Pentium)

Asus Z97-E motherboard (6 SATA ports total with 2 from the SATA Express port)

8GB DDR3

IO Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 ControllerSI-PEX40064 (Marvell 88SE9215)

DSM: XPEnoBoot 5.2-5592.2 / DS3615xs build 5592.2,.... (I think).

 

Thanks for any input you might have,....

[peterk]

DSM definitely does not need your SSD to operate, if there is (are) other initialized disk(s) attached. System partitions (root and swap) are mirrored on all initialized drives, so as long as you have at least one initialized HDD, DSM will boot and operate fine.

 

You can check if a drive is initialized in storage manager => HDD's. Actually, this - mirroring of system partition - is the difference between uninitialized and initialized drives. (That is why the initialization process wipes all your data => it creates a new partition table, and adds a new mirror of system partitions on the new drive).

 

So, I assume that DSM looked for your SSD, because it was an initialized disk - and did not found it. (in the background, mdadm reported a missing disk in it's system raid1 volumes). So that's why that warning. The repair process will probably be as simple as DSM will remove the missing disk (SSD) from it's "internal table" of initialized disks ("internal table" = system raid volumes).