Jump to content
XPEnology Community

Will this Setup Work & Other Questions


UWK-87

Recommended Posts

Hi,

 

I am very new XPEnology and hope you guys can bear with me. Thanks.

 

I am building a new system for my self with Windows 10 Pro on it. This system will run VMware Workstation 12.5 Pro, which in turn will run DSM 6.1. If I follow the following procedure will it work:

 

  • VM with DSM 6.1 
    • 1 x 50 MB pre-allocated HDD (synoboot.vmdk) 
    • 2 x 4TB Physical Drive Mounted to system and made available to VM as physical disk implementation. (Haven't tried it physical disk in VMware Workstation)
  • Goto find.synology.com. Setup, format and install the setup.
  • Configure all services in DSM as per requirement, such OpenVPN server, PLEX etc.
  • One month down the line when my 8TB HDD WD RED NAS arrive, remove the 4TB ones & move to the new ones (Not concerned about the data at all).

 

I simulated the above by using a virtual disk instead of physical disk and once I remove them and install new VMDISKs it asks for the complete setup again and I lose all my DSM configuration.

 

Questions:

  • Any suggestions for the above setup?
  • Should I install a separate Virtual Disk for DSM installation? So no matter if I remove the other physical drives or Virtual Drives the DSM configuration remains as it is i.e. without re-installation?
  • Is the VMware Workstation version, capable of supporting SSD caching? If yes, can you kindly guide me how? 

 

 

Thanks in advance everyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

(Don't want to go the ESXi route as this would be a gaming PC as well.)

 

I didn't think the system would matter since I am going with a virtualized setup. However, the following are my system specs:

 

Intel - Core i7-7820X 3.6GHz 8-Core Processor
Corsair - H115i 104.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Asus - PRIME X299-A ATX LGA2066 Motherboard
Corsair - Vengeance LPX 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-2666 Memory
Samsung - 960 Pro 1TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
Corsair - Air 740 ATX Full Tower Case
Corsair - 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

 

Will add a GTX-1080 TI soon.

 

However, the issue is not the system instead it's the virtualized DSM that's bothering me. For example this was my test scenario:

  • VM with DSM 6.1 
    • 1 x 50 MB pre-allocated HDD (synoboot.vmdk) 
    • 2 x 100GB VMDK (Virtual Disks)
  • Goto find.synology.com. Setup, format and install the setup.
  • Configure all services in DSM as per requirement, such OpenVPN server, PLEX etc.
  • Delete the 2 x 100GB VMDK (virtual disks) add another two 2 x 200GB VMDK (virtual disks). However, 1 x 50 MB pre-allocated HDD (synoboot.vmdk)  remains the same - [simulation of migration from 4TB to 8TB]

 

However, when I boot the system I find that it asks me to do the setup again. I didn't proceed further, so doesn't that mean that all my DSM configs have been lost? How can I retain the setup while making changes in the HDD area.

 

Thanks again.

 

P.S: I decided I won't run PLEX on it, will have a separate VM for that. So I will just be running other small software's like Resilio Sync (new BitSync), GoodSync & OpenVPN.

Edited by UWK-87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, UWK-87 said:

 

  • Delete the 2 x 100GB VMDK (virtual disks) add another two 2 x 200GB VMDK (virtual disks). However, 1 x 50 MB pre-allocated HDD (synoboot.vmdk)  remains the same - [simulation of migration from 4TB to 8TB]

However, when I boot the system I find that it asks me to do the setup again. I didn't proceed further, so doesn't that mean that all my DSM configs have been lost? How can I retain the setup while making changes in the HDD area.

That's not how migration works, effectively you've removed the HDD's DSM knows about & installed new ones, which is why you're being prompted to redo the setup.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Dfds said:

That's not how migration works, effectively you've removed the HDD's DSM knows about & installed new ones, which is why you're being prompted to redo the setup.

 

Fair Enough. I will add 2 HDDs before removing the previous to see if it works correctly then.

 

Last question till I do the test, is it possible to do SSD caching in the VM environment? Or just running the VM on SSD will give equivalent results to doing SSD caching?

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...