Forumite Members › General Topics › Tech › Linux Talk › New Uses for My Synology NAS
- This topic has 8 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 5 months ago by
Dave Rice.
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September 27, 2019 at 2:13 pm #37038
As you may remember I bought a new Synology NAS with an Intel CPU to experiment with Active Directory. Now that’s working OK (still lots to learn) I’ve been looking at what else these Intel / BTRFS machines can do that the ARM ones can’t.
Active Backup for Business – on the PC side is a centrally managed bare metal full system backup service. Pretty painless and automatically uses BTRFS deduplication features plus compression to keep the sizes small. For servers it deals with snapshots. Does what it says on the tin with plenty of options and reports.
More interesting is the Virtual Machine Manager. From what I can see it’s QEMU and supports all the usual O/Ses plus Synology DSM (but that needs £ licence). Creating a VM is easy and seems to have all I’ll need, but not as comprehensive as the big names.
Now my NAS only has a 2.5Ghz dual core Celeron J3355, which were once known as Apollo Lake Atoms and aimed at embedded duties. But they are 14nm and even with a fully encrypted BTRFS volume mine spends most of the time ticking over. I do have 10GB ram in there (added an 8GB SODIMM),
So probably not going to run anything too CPU heavy, but turns out it’s perfect for the PiHole and probably for a UniFi server too if I needed one onsite. It automatically spins up with the NAS.
So now I can turn off my big boy Virtual Machine server until I need it for network modelling.
September 27, 2019 at 4:39 pm #37046So it’ll actually run a VM on the NAS itself? That’s pretty cool. At the minute I run a Pi alongside the NAS to run various tasks (such as Pi-Hole on). I also then run a Mac Mini as a server as well! I think the Mac Mini will replace both in fairness – as I just need to serve files around the house, which the Mac can do, and it can auto file documents for me. I haven’t set it up, but I could run Pi Hole on there as well, but as it runs so well on the Pi, I’ve not bothered setting it up.
"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett
September 27, 2019 at 7:29 pm #37047Nice. But what about things like secure boot that come with yer server.
September 27, 2019 at 8:04 pm #37052It’s not Windows. The O/S is known as DSM (Disk Station Manager) and is basically Linux under the hood, not that you ever see it.
It’s like Android for servers. There’s an app store that’s full of free stuff that covers most of the bases. They have a deal with LetsEncyrpt! to easily secure any internet interaction with a certificate. And a thousand and one other things.
DSM is common across all the hardware, mostly they can all run the same apps but like an Android phone, some models will run some apps better than others. The exception is those with an Intel CPU (they mostly have ARM) which can run some “business” specification things like Active Directory (reverse engineered by Samba), QEMU for the VM server, managed Backups and the BRTFS disk format. I guess the base software for these requires x86 instructions.
You can also create a very capable multi site, multi vendor CCTV system with Synology units. Borough Market does exactly this. From my point of view this is very useful as you can side step in house IT who can put all sorts of things in your way if you use Windows. You get 2 free camera licences with each box.
Next thing to sort is the Plex server app and my new 4K TV. Yep, I’ve finally moved from a non Smart TV. There are now no boxes attached to my TV, apart from the sound bar (which I can also Bluetooth for Spotifiy duties).
September 27, 2019 at 11:30 pm #37061Finally moved from a non smart. Dave what did you have, a sony trinitron 32? Yeah, Bluetooth has come along way and perfect for spotify. Funny how we are all apposed to the surveillance scociety and yet we are putting cameras in and out of our homes caputuring all thats goin on. 🙂
September 27, 2019 at 11:52 pm #37063Not quite that old LOL. A 43″ LG with a Scart, USB, Component Video and VGA ports alongside 3 x HDMI but no brains. Sky box, DVD Player, Amazon TV and Chrome Cast all gone along with an old mini HiFi. The sound bar is better than the TV but not quite as good as the HiFi, but it’s more than good enough so out she goes.
I have a free Google Mini on the way but doubt I’ll be shouting at the telly (outside of Peston) which has it’s own voice control anyway (turned off). In fact I’m not sure what it’ll be used for but thought I’d better start finding out for £zero. I never intend having a camera in the house and have a shield over the laptop webcam.
September 28, 2019 at 7:02 am #37067I agree with not putting security cameras inside houses. The objective is to keep unwanted guests out, not to film them wrecking the place looking for the server!
September 29, 2019 at 2:09 pm #37095Anonymous
Forumite Points: 0What sort of power usage do these boxes use? I’ve always thought these Synology boxes are pretty expensive for what they are, considering they don’t come with the drives. My Pi 3 has been running connected to the router for power, but naturally it’s limited in what it can do. File serving, Pihole and Plex (within limits, no 4k for example!).
I’ve wondered about the likes of a Mac Mini type box, or make use of a Intel dev board, such as the Up-Squared, though I have no case for that.
September 29, 2019 at 2:23 pm #37097My DS218+ is 5.4w when the HDDs are in hibernation, 17.23w if going full blast.
As for “what they are” they are far far more than a basic file server. These are proper serious business class servers and after the initial purchase probably all of the apps you’ll want are free and properly supported. The self diagnosis and reporting is extremely extensive.
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