Synology OS on a Pi?

[poing]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but...

I have two Synology NAS servers and I'm very pleased with them. Some of these models run on ARM CPUs and use only 128MB or even less. The Synology OS (called DSM) is published under the GPL license.

Could this OS run on a Pi?

some links:

Simple Synology NAS: http://www.synology.com/produc.....#p_submenu

CPUs used in Synology: http://forum.synology.com/wiki.....y_NAS_have

Download GPL: http://www.synology.com/suppor.....p?lang=enu

[steviewevie]

That looks like it uses an ARMv5 processor, whereas the Raspi is ARMv6. Would a simple recompile make it work for Raspi ? I imagine it will need driver support etc, so not a trivial task. Someone else can probably say for sure though.

[cnxsoft]

FYI. ARMv5 code will run on ARMv6 targets. For example, Fedora 14 Remix binaries packages are built for ARMv5 and runs just fine on the Raspberry Pi board.

Back to Sinology, if the full source code is available then I don't see why it could not run on the Raspberry Pi board using the Raspberry Pi kernel and the Synology code.

[emg]

Not much use without SATA?

[poing]

The strong point of the DSM (Synology OS) is the user friendliness. I was thinking if you could somehow route the Syno's normal SATA connection to a USB HD you'd get a reasonable killer use for a RasPi.

Power usage will be extremely low while it should be able to act as a DLNA server for another RasPi connected to a TV and backup for client PCs.

IMO at some point easy software will be crucial for the RasPi to stay a success. Apps like this could contribute. Sadly I would not know where to begin to do this myself

[welshblob]

I'd be surprised if there aren't some parts of their NAS software that are closed source. Otherwise there would be lots of clones around using their code.

Rob

[ReCreate]

steviewevie said:


That looks like it uses an ARMv5 processor, whereas the Raspi is ARMv6. Would a simple recompile make it work for Raspi ? I imagine it will need driver support etc, so not a trivial task. Someone else can probably say for sure though.



ARM is backwards compatible. It's like how you can still run MS-DOS on a core i7. It's just that the old software won't take advantage of the new features of the CPU.

[bugmenot3]

I agree that Synology DSM is great at his task and there is no good alternative. Even hardware very similar to the Pi like USB Station 2 is amazing.

I would like to use the Pi in a similar way I use the USB Station 2 right now, but I haven't found a way. It's basically, hey, it's opensource and the hardware is open, if you want something, do it by yourself, but nobody does in the end.

I would like to see a serious project on this, with at least support for bittorrent, ftp, samba and ssh.

[bugmenot3]

Not much use without SATA?

There are a lot of SATA to USB converters on ebay or such, that's not excuse.

[fruitloaf]

Not much use without SATA?

There are a lot of SATA to USB converters on ebay or such, that's not excuse.

Except the performance will be pretty poor. You may be able to get it to work acceptably as a single drive NAS but more than that and the USB bandwidth just won't give you any decent performance.

For this you really would be better off getting a cheap ITX board with an atom CPU that has SATA ports already and you can get quite a nice performing multi drive setup going.

[lampy]

Has someone tried this already? The source is available, it's even possible to run it on a pc/virtual machine ( xpenology.com ). So why not on a Pi?

I have no experience with compiling but I can see the possibilities.

[dcosmin]

For many of the synology applications there are good (maybe better) alternatives (mpd + rompr, rtorrent + rtgui, webmin, shairplay etc.), although not integrated in a single interface, plus a lot more software from the raspbian repos. Having used the Pi as a NAS+wifi router for some time, I can say that for someone looking for easy configuration out of the box it is probably worth investing in a real NAS, thus avoiding usb performance issues. The Pi is far more versatile, but will not outperform a dedicated hardware product.

[voltron81]

Interesting topic.

I would like to use raspberry as synology server, just because it should be able to record IP cameras on HDD in an easy way...

Have some of you tried this option?

Regards

[bogdancraciun]

This thread is kind of old, but I am wondering if the new version of Raspberry 2 could run the Synology DSM software. It has more RAM and new CPU. Might be possible?

[hansotten]

The CPU of the RPi 2 is good enough, some Synology NAS systems run fine with lesser cpu and memory

Whether it will be any good will depend on the I/O channels. SATA, Ethernet can be added . But since in a Raspberry all has to go the USB bottleneck it may be a bit slow and not comparable with a Synology NAS at all. I can see disk access fighting with network access on the USB port ...

A simple Synology NAS will cost just over 100 euro, and includes a case, power, room in a cage for one or two SATA disks, USB 2 ports, fast ethernet, cooling and a supported DSM.

A RPi2 with USB SATA, case, power, disk cage will cost less?

So for the price-performance and time to invest, not a good idea. For the fun of it, of course! And if DSM will not run, then there are other NAS solutions for the RPi (with the same argument: slow).

[bogdancraciun]

I see your point and agree with that. I found some DS111 at around 80 Euros, but with a single core 1.6Ghz CPU, 256 RAM, but Gigabit Ethernet, indeed.

I know that RPi is limited by the USB controller, but ownCloud runs OK/acceptable, and I am able to use the RPi for several things in the same time, e.g. NAS + Home Automation Gateway.
The only drawback of using Owncloud is that DSM software has a lot of features like integration with IP cameras and other stuff in a single "package".

[porroto]

I think DSM use to have ARM versions http://www.synology-wiki.de/index.php/W ... _System%3F
Also we just have the new Raspberry Pi3B+ let's try...

[bogdancraciun]

I think DSM use to have ARM versions http://www.synology-wiki.de/index.php/W ... _System%3F
Also we just have the new Raspberry Pi3B+ let's try...

Yes, exactly, that's my point. But where can we get those?