DSM 7.x Loaders and Platforms

[flyride 768]

Before installing XPEnology using DSM 7.x, you must select a DSM platform and loader. XPEnology supports a variety of platforms that enable specific hardware and software features. All platforms support a minimum of 4 CPU cores, 64GB of RAM, 10Gbe network cards and 16 drives. Each can run "baremetal" as a stand-alone operating system OR as a virtual machine within a hypervisor. A few specific platforms are preferred for typical installs. Review the table and decision tree below to help you navigate the options.

 

DSM 7.x LOADERS ARE DIFFERENT:

 

A loader allows DSM to install and run on non-Synology hardware. The loaders for DSM 5.x/6.x were monolithic; i.e. a single loader image was applicable to all installs. With DSM 7.x, a custom loader must be created for each DSM install. TinyCore RedPill (TCRP) is currently the most developed tool for building 7.x loaders. TCRP installs with two step-process. First, a Linux OS (TinyCore) boots and evaluates your hardware configuration. Then, an individualized loader (RedPill) is built and written to the loader device. After that, you can switch between starting DSM with RedPill, and booting back into TinyCore to adjust and rebuild as needed.

 

TCRP's Linux boot image (indicated by the version; i.e. 0.4.6) changes only when a new DSM platform or version is introduced. However, you can and should update TCRP itself prior to each loader build, adding fixes, driver updates and new features contributed by many different developers. Because of this ongoing community development, TCRP capabilities change rapidly. Please post new or divergent results when encountered, so that this table may be updated.

 

7.x Loaders and Platforms as of 11-May-2022

Options Ranked	1a	1b	2a	2b	2c	3a	3b
DSM Platform	DS918+	DS3622xs+	DS920+	DS1621+	DS3617xs	DVA3221	DS3615xs
Architecture	apollolake	broadwellnk	geminilake	v1000	broadwell	denverton	bromolow
DSM Versions	7.0.1-7.1.0-42661	7.0.1-7.1.0-42661	7.0.1-7.1.0-42661	7.0.1-7.1.0-42661	7.0.1-7.1.0-42661	7.0.1-7.1.0-42661	7.0.1-7.1.0-42661
Loader	TCRP 0.4.6	TCRP 0.4.6	TCRP 0.4.6	TCRP 0.4.6	TCRP 0.4.6	TCRP 0.4.6	TCRP 0.4.6
Drive Slot Mapping	sataportmap/ diskidxmap	sataportmap/ diskidxmap	device tree	device tree	sataportmap/ diskidxmap	sataportmap/ diskidxmap	sataportmap/ diskidxmap
QuickSync Transcoding	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
NVMe Cache Support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (as of 7.0)	Yes	No
RAIDF1 Support	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Oldest CPU Supported	Haswell *	any x86-64	Haswell *	any x86-64	any x86-64	Haswell *	any x86-64
Max CPU Threads	8	24	8	16	24 (as of 7.0)	16	16
Key Note	currently best for most users	best for very large installs	see slot mapping topic below	AMD Ryzen, see slot mapping topic	obsolete use DS3622xs+	AI/Deep Learning nVIDIA GPU	obsolete use DS3622xs+

* FMA3 instruction support required. All Haswell Core processors or later support it.  Very few Pentiums/Celerons do (J-series CPUs are a notable exception).

   Piledriver is believed to be the minimum AMD CPU architecture equivalent to Intel Haswell.

 

DRIVE SLOT MAPPING CONSIDERATIONS:

 

On most platforms, DSM evaluates the boot-time Linux parameters SataPortMap and DiskIdxMap to map drive slots from disk controllers to a usable range for DSM.  Much has been written about how to set up these parameters. TCRP's satamap command determines appropriate values based on the system state during the loader build. It is also simple to manually edit the configuration file if your hardware is unique or misidentified by the tool.

 

On the DS920+ and DS1621+ platforms, DSM uses a Device Tree to identify the hardware and ignores SataPortMap and DiskIdxMap. The device tree hardcodes the disk controller PCI devices and drive slots (and also NVMe slots and USB ports) prior to DSM installation. Therefore, an explicit device tree that matches your hardware must be configured and stored within the loader image.

 

TCRP automatic device tree generation is currently very limited and can be incomplete. For example, if all disk slots are not populated at loader build time, they will not be accessible later. TCRP currently cannot generate a VMware ESXi compatible device tree at all. Manually determining correct values and updating the device tree is complex. This is being worked on and will improve, but at the moment, you will generally be better served by choosing platforms that support SataPortMap and DiskIdxMap (see Tier 1 below).

 

CURRENT PLATFORM RECOMMENDATIONS AND DECISION TREE:

 

Spoiler

1a. DEFAULT install DS918+ 7.1.0

• Benefits: hardware transcoding, NVMe cache support, direct platform migration from 6.2.x
• Prerequisite: Intel Haswell (aka 4th generation) or newer CPU architecture (or AMD equivalent) 
• Compatibility troubleshooting options: virtualization, DS3622xs+, DS1621+ (for AMD systems)

1b. LARGE SYSTEM install DS3622xs+ 7.1.0

• Benefits: RAIDF1 support, up to 24 CPU threads, enhanced SAS support, NVMe cache support
• Compatibility troubleshooting options: virtualization, DS1621+ (for AMD systems)

 

Spoiler

2a. LATEST platform install DS920+ 7.1.0

• Benefits: NVMe cache support, if the very latest version of DS9xx+ platform is desired
• Prerequisite: Intel Haswell (aka 4th generation) or newer CPU architecture (or AMD equivalent) 
• Compatibility troubleshooting options: virtualization, DS3622xs+, DS1621+ (for AMD systems)
• NOTE: this model requires device tree configuration which is not 100% functional yet
• No additional functional features over DS918+

2b. AMD platform install DS1621+ 7.1.0

• Benefits: NVMe cache support, AMD-specific build using AMD chipset and Ryzen CPU (seems to run fine on Intel also)
• NOTE: this model requires device tree configuration which is not 100% functional yet
• Compatibility troubleshooting options: virtualization
• No additional functional features over other platforms

2c. ALTERNATE install DS3617xs 7.1.0

• Benefits: RAIDF1 support, enhanced SAS support, direct platform migration from 6.2.x
• NOTE: technically obsolete, replaced by DS3622xs+
• Compatibility troubleshooting options: virtualization, DS1621+ (for AMD systems)

 

Spoiler

3a. DEEP LEARNING/AI platform install DVA3221 7.1.0

• Benefits: Native nVIDIA GPU support (for AI, no apparent transcoding capability), NVME cache support
• Prerequisite: Intel Haswell (aka 4th generation) or newer CPU architecture (or AMD equivalent) 
• Compatibility troubleshooting options: virtualization

3b. LEGACY install DS3615xs 7.1.0

• Benefits: RAIDF1 support, enhanced SAS support, direct platform migration from 6.2.x
• NOTE: technically obsolete, replaced by DS3622xs+
• NOTE: this platform is known to have kernel panic crashes when under load
• NOTE: 7.1.0 is the last DSM build for DS3615xs, no further updates will be provided by Synology
• Compatibility troubleshooting options: virtualization, DS1621+ (for AMD systems)

 

VIRTUALIZATION: 

 

All the supported platforms can be run as a virtual machine within a hypervisor. Some use case examples:

• virtualize unsupported network card
• virtualize SAS/NVMe storage and present to DSM as SATA
• run other VMs in parallel on the same hardware (as an alternative to Synology VMM)
• share 10GBe network card with other non-XPEnology VMs
• testing and rollback of updates

Prerequisites: ESXi (requires a paid or free license) or open-source hypervisor (QEMU, Proxmox, XenServer). Hyper-V is NOT supported.

Preferred Configurations: passthrough SATA controller and disks, and/or configure RDM/RAW disks

 

This post will be updated as more documentation is available for the various TCRP implementations.

Spoiler

15-May-2022 satamap now supports VMware; the section on port mapping has been edited accordingly, also added detail on loader behavior
20-May-2022 update DS3617xs as 7.0 added new capabilities, update DV3221

 

[IG-88 1,036]

On 5/11/2022 at 7:53 PM, flyride said:

Hardware Transcoding

there are different api's that software like jellyfin (free, syno package or docker) or plex/emby (needs license/paying for hardware transcoding) can use

syno's videostation seems to be intel qsv exclusive, guess it would not do hardware transcoding with dva3221 with just nvidia drivers

so not just yes/no, maybe Intel QSV for 918/920 and Nvidia ( not sure if its NVENC/CUDA/VDPAU) for DVA3221 as the nvidia kernel driver is installed and with the nvidia package from synology it gets nvidia support for using plex or jellyfin (as also done for 3615, 3617, 918+ on 6.2.3), even a "optional Nvidia" might be possible on all other (with a "*" because there is no driver yet for 3622 or other units)

https://xpenology.com/forum/topic/22272-nvidia-runtime-library/

i contrary to the missing i915 support in other kernels then 918/920 there was no problem in compiling additional nvidia drivers (matching the version synology uses) for other units, afaik there should be no problem having nvidia drivers in 3622 for using jellyfin/emby/plex instead of the intel qsv we cant have with this unit

 

it might also be useful to mention the base kernel version, its 4.4.x for all but 3615, that one still has  3.10.x (with 6.2.3 and kernel 4.4 on 918 and 3.10 on 3615/3617 i was unable to compile some drivers for 3.10 like the realtek 2.5G nic driver)

 

 

for 3617 and cpu threads i had found out (syno kernel config published) that its 24 with 7.x (syno might have used the kernel config of longer standing broadwellnk as base for bringing broadwell from 3.10 to 4.4)

https://xpenology.com/forum/topic/38603-suggestions-for-units-to-have-a-loader-for-with-70/?do=findComment&comment=264214

does not change the outcome of 3617 being replaced by 3622 but makes them more or less the same (there might be slight differences in the driver versions syno has ootb tipping the scale to 3622)

 

 

it might be worth mentioning that there is still no hyper-v support, so anyone hoping for this needs to choose something different then xpenology

 

 

afair we already tested dva3221 for older cpu support and it was the same as 918/920

https://xpenology.com/forum/topic/58499-dva3221-loader-development-thread/?do=findComment&comment=270216

 

 

DS3617xs is listed as "NVMe Cache Support" No - it should be a Yes

https://kb.synology.com/en-id/DSM/tutorial/Which_Synology_NAS_models_support_SSD_cache

it supports E10M20-T1, M2D20 (has a pcie slot) and can have nvme in the regular version from synology, so the nvme support is present and we could use it the same way as with the other units (i guess all kernel 4.4 units have nvme support in general, the only one left out are the 3.10 kernel units like DS3615xs)