Jump to content
XPEnology Community

Booting DSM 6.1.1. From the USB drive configuration


Recommended Posts

Hello.

 

Of course I am aware that DSM 6.1.1. It's just being implemented, but it has a question, going a little bit in the future?

 

I have a question about installing Xpenology in 6.1.1 on the hardware as I said above. This is not a virtual machine, but the actual hardware. Please suggest the installation. I present my vision on this subject:

Equipment - General:

- Gigabyte GA-H97N Pro wifi (v 1.1)

- RAM - 16GB Crucial Ballistic Low Voltage Low Profile (2x8GB)

- HDD: 2x 500GB 2.5 '' and 4 x 4TB 3.5 ''

I also have 2x64GB Samsung and 2 or 8GB pendrive from Kingston

 

Currently I have installed on these pendrives - Freenas 11 and the system starts with these drives. However, because of the lack of ECC memory, I decided to use Xpenology because I know this system from my former DS-212J.

 

 

I have got some questions:

1. Is it possible to install Xpenology software on both pendrives (as USB drives) 2x 64GB? I mean, then 4TB disks will only be used for user data, not for system data. I plan to use 4x 4TB disks to build a RAID 5 array. The question is, can you make better motherboard BIOS or DSM level?

2. Is it necessary to boot the system from a separate USB flash drive (2-8GB)? Is it possible to prepare a USB flash drive with 64GB flash drive so that the system boot and boot from these disks and only those disks have been saved? 64GB is plenty of space .... for data and DSM plugins.

3. I am concerned that 4 x 4TB disks are only available for user data and that the system will only fully boot from "mirrored" 64GB pendrives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For both real Synology boxes and XPE versions, there is a boot loader which does just that, but the main DSM operating system and Apps are all installed on dedicated system partitions created/mirrored on each HDD. All that your XPE USB drive does is to provide the boot load and then once the system is 'up' DSM runs from the HDDs, you can't change this architecture to make more HDD space available.

So, any cheap/big enough USB drive for the boot loader will be fine

My advice would be to create a test build of XPE/DSM on your hardware and see if its all compatible with some tests, try 5.2, 6.0.2 and 6.1.1 following the tutorials and you should be fine

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In that case, is there a possibility to install the system on flash drives - without the attached HDD (sata), and only after installing the system on the disk (s) the flash has just added the HDD. What will happen then? Will the system be transferred to HDD or remain on USB flash drives?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In that case, is there a possibility to install the system on flash drives - without the attached HDD (sata), and only after installing the system on the disk (s) the flash has just added the HDD. What will happen then? Will the system be transferred to HDD or remain on USB flash drives?

You cannot do what you are asking, DSM is installed on ALL installed HDD's, this is not optional it's how DSM is designed to work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

This might be an old questions but I'd like to hook it up onece more because I was asking myself the same question. 

 

And what would happen now if I remove my first hdd which I used to install xpenology initially (it holds my apps and docker containers) and swap it for a bigger hdd? 

 

Can I assume that it would boot normally and what would happen to my volume 1?

Would the new hdd be needed to create a new volume and raid? 

I could live with it to install my apps and dockers again. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...