Xpenology fresh install on HP N54L - 6 drives?

[djbills]

Hi - I'm excited to be getting Xpenology going on my little microserver, have been wanting to do this for a long time.

 

Question - I really want to max this out with the full 6 drive potential. Even using the eSata cable and running it internally to get access to a 6th port.

 

I have an old Intel 60gb SSD I'm wanting to use to put the DSM on, and then I have 5 WD RED (3TB) drives that will be the main array for data.

 

I went through the setup last night and I can't quite seem to control where Xpenology is setting up the OS. I boot from the USB key and then it seems to have installed the OS onto the main drive pool, and I can't seem to get it to put the OS onto the SSD.

 

I think part of the problem is the SSD is on the eSata port right now. I tried pulling the main drive array and making it so just the SSD was in the system, thinking it would put the OS on it for sure then - and it did, but not until I moved it over to one of the internal bays.

 

And then when I put the array back in, it just seemed to boot up from the OS that had installed on the Array and again ignored the SSD (on the eSata) port. It does recognize the drive on the eSata port as an external drive, but it doesn't look like it's accessing it or able to mount it at all even though it's listed in the little extrnal list in the upper right hand corner, along with the USB key.

 

So, I'm not quite sure how to attack this. It seems like if I could edit some sort of config file so that the n54l would treat the eSata port like an internal port, that might do the trick? Or maybe there's some way I could force xpenology to boot from the SSD on the eSata port and then reformat the array fresh to get rid of any trace of OS install (which seems to be invisible??).

 

Any ideas or help here would be amazing - thanks in advance.

 

worst case I can just ditch the SSD idea and let the OS live on the array... not the worst thing in the world.

[XPEH]

DSM is installed on all the drives that included to RAID. You can not install it to individual drive only.

You best bet would be leaving your array with 5 drives and remove your SSD from this array. With DSM version 4.3 or image from RS model, you could use SSD for caching, otherwise just connect another large ESATA drive and use it as local backup.

[djbills]

Great - thanks for the info.

 

I'm not seeing any 4.3 builds on the forums, or the RS model image - do you have a link? Seems like it's a bit early but something I should watch out for. The 4.2 builds seem proven.

[Bagpuss]

I've just installed the latest XPEnology DS3612xs DSM 4.2 build 3211++ (repack v1.1) on my N54L, and it almost works out of the box.

 

I've got 5 x 2TB Seagate Green drives and a WD 250GB 2.5" drive.

4 of the Seagate drives are in the internal bay, and the 5th drive is in a dual 3.5/2.5 carrier in the optical drive bay.

 

The 5th 2TB drive is connected to the eSATA port using an eSATA -> SATA cable, with the 2.5" drive connected to the optical drive bay.

 

When I first booted DSM, then I see the four 2TB drives and the 250GB drive in Storage Manager. The remaining 2TB drive is recognised, but as it's correctly identified as eSATA, DSM won't allow it to be part of an array volume.

 

This can be fixed by editing synoinfo.conf. I edited the /etc.defaults/synoinfo.conf and /etc/synoinfo.conf, as changing /etc/synoinfo.conf alone did not seem to work.

 

The entries I'm currently using are:

 

internalportcfg="0x3f" (0000 0000 0011 1111 - 6 SATA)

esataportcfg="0x00000" (0000 0000 0000 0000 - 0 eSATA)

usbportcfg="0xfc1" (0000 1111 1100 0001)

 

However, USB doesn't seem to work correctly in this configuration, as I can't eject any USB drives without an error.

USB drives are mounted okay, and you can access them, but there is a hotplugd error. This then prevents ejection.

You can login via SSH, and manually unmount them, and this works just fine.

 

As soon as the SHR volume finishes building, I'm going to change the USB config to:

 

usbportcfg="0x1fc0" (0001 1111 1100 0000) - 7 USB ports, with no clashes with mask for either SATA or eSATA.

 

which I think is more likely to be correct.

 

I haven't needed to add any additional modules, as I did previously with the Nighthawk release, and pretty much everything seems to work okay.

Keyboard, mouse etc. are fine.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Andy.

[fonix232]

I haven't had any problems with USB storage before, though the whole unit is just a few days old. I've been using the port config from the N40L thread, unchanged, but it would be nice if I could disable the internal port (so I cannot disengage the boot USB by accident).

 

My major problem is the HP health LED, it turned pink and can't do anything about it :\

 

To OP:

As it was said before, Synology installs itself to every initialized disk, so that the volumes and arrays can be removed, while the OS, with all the settings, remains intact. You could use the SSD to store the extra apps you download, by setting up a simple volume on it, ensuring that all of them can load fast. As far as I know, Synology loads the OS from the first disk it detects, so an SSD could only help with that if you could either put it on the first port (Slot #1 on the 4-bay area), or modify the BIOS to detect your given port as the first.

[She]

i m on the same boat.

 

I just purchase a n54L and i want to have 6 x 3tb WD REDS with Xpenology.

Do i need any custom firmware BIOS for the 5th and 6th drive to work properly?

 

anyone knows a good HDD spacer, so i can put the 2 disks (5th and 6th drive) at the 5.25' bay (cdrom) of microserver.

thanks

[berwhale]

i m on the same boat.

 

I just purchase a n54L and i want to have 6 x 3tb WD REDS with Xpenology.

Do i need any custom firmware BIOS for the 5th and 6th drive to work properly?

 

anyone knows a good HDD spacer, so i can put the 2 disks (5th and 6th drive) at the 5.25' bay (cdrom) of microserver.

thanks

 

Yes, you need a custom BIOS (otherwise, the ODD and eSATA ports run in IDE emulation mode - they're slow and you can only use one of them at a time)

 

These work a treat in the ODD bay... http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_3996.html

 

You'll also need a molex to dual SATA power adapter.