DSM 7 + SATA SSD for system. Does it make sense?

[Pegasus]

How is a bootable USB stick used? Does it only specify the sector from which xpenology should boot? If I have 5 disks (SATA 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ports), will the system always boot from the SATA 1? Is the operating system stored on the flash drive? Does the entire Xpenology system load into RAM or is it constantly being loaded? I want to achieve maximum performance for my Xpenology system and Docker installation. Is it worth using a SATA SSD instead of a USB stick? Or do I need a USB stick + SATA SSD in the SATA 1 port in Xpenology?

[namvan]

The USB contains only the loader and is used to boot up your build. Nothing more, nothing less.

If I remembered well reading in the forum: DSM is however installed to all your drives, one copy on each, when the drives are added.

 

[ue23]

On 3/13/2023 at 7:39 PM, Pegasus said:

How is a bootable USB stick used? Does it only specify the sector from which xpenology should boot? If I have 5 disks (SATA 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ports), will the system always boot from the SATA 1? Is the operating system stored on the flash drive? Does the entire Xpenology system load into RAM or is it constantly being loaded? I want to achieve maximum performance for my Xpenology system and Docker installation. Is it worth using a SATA SSD instead of a USB stick? Or do I need a USB stick + SATA SSD in the SATA 1 port in Xpenology?

 

Interesting questions, which I am having exactly the same right now...

 

I was planing too, to switch from USB to a small SSD 120GB (new, like 15€). I was hoping for quicker booting, app response/loading, etc..

 

 

On 5/16/2023 at 12:27 PM, namvan said:

The USB contains only the loader and is used to boot up your build. Nothing more, nothing less.

If I remembered well reading in the forum: DSM is however installed to all your drives, one copy on each, when the drives are added.

 

 

So if this is true, then a SSD boot drive doesn't make any sense, right??

 

Can anyone confirm this and/or add some more infos about how the USB is used and if it makes any sense in going for a boot SSD??

 

Many thanks!

 

 

[launton]

As above, once the loader is taken from the USB, the OS is pulled from the hard disk, there's no specific benefit at all. AFAIK

[wahabe]

I have been using it for about a month 

Very fast boot 

SATA 1 2 3 4 5 for hd

SATA 6 SSD 120GB Bootloader

use balenaetcher to burn

I use arpl-i18n  v.23.10.1

[namvan]

On 10/13/2023 at 8:19 AM, ue23 said:

I was planing too, to switch from USB to a small SSD 120GB (new, like 15€). I was hoping for quicker booting, app response/loading, etc..

The goal you would want as above is nothing (much) to do with the boot device which is the USB/SSD. If speeding up boot process, faster app response time is something you are after then the SSD would play a role in your set up. There are a few things you need to consider

 

1. Boot loader: the USB. Nothing much you can do for this.

2. DiskStation Manager installation (DSM): this is the bare minimum, think of it as Windows or Linux, to control your devices such as disks, networks.. And some skeleton apps. This part can be speeded up with SSD.

3. The individual app: such as Photos, Office etc. This part can be speeded up with SSD too.

4. The data for the app: most of the apps will need some kind of storage and would provide an option to specify the location for the storage outside of the app at installation time. If this is the case, you can choose to put the apps to the SSD storage and store the data to the spinning disks.

  4a. Some apps won't provide an option at installation time but will create a share folder instead. You should pick the SSD at installation time so that everything would set up there and then move the share folder to the spinning disks later.

 

Hope this helps.