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DSM 4.2 Running on EX495
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Author:  erail [ Sun Apr 28, 2013 11:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Smart seems to work but the test hangs at 90% on all my drives which are wd blacks and greens -- all fairly old. The EX495 runs the best with the bios controlling the fan speed to keep everything cool. The EX485 seems to be a different story though. Even with the 490 bios the fans were controlled by speedfan and that option no longer is available. I'll have to see if there are any bios settings which will ramp up the fan speed because it's just too warm on the drives and have no idea of cpu temps.

Author:  ajafar [ Mon Apr 29, 2013 12:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

erail wrote:
Smart seems to work but the test hangs at 90% on all my drives which are wd blacks and greens -- all fairly old. The EX495 runs the best with the bios controlling the fan speed to keep everything cool. The EX485 seems to be a different story though. Even with the 490 bios the fans were controlled by speedfan and that option no longer is available. I'll have to see if there are any bios settings which will ramp up the fan speed because it's just too warm on the drives and have no idea of cpu temps.


Do you not get cpu temps under system information? My temperature was at 50 degrees as I was transcoding some content.

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Author:  erail [ Mon Apr 29, 2013 8:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

I guess I never moused over the lights on my real synology units, so never knew that was there. Thank you. Still the EX485 needs some help in the cooling area.

Author:  erail [ Mon Apr 29, 2013 6:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Checking the temperature of real units and find that the processor and drives are the same as the EX485. Go Figure! Also the real units only recognize 1 drive in StorBox so the EX495 is the same. May work with a real expansion unit.

Author:  ajafar [ Tue May 07, 2013 1:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

A quick update on the Synology EX495 experiment.

I've loaded up my q9550s with 4gb of ram EX495 with over 3tb of data.

Hard drives are 2x2TB WD Red, 2x3TB WD Red. Total Disk space with Synology Hybrid Raid (1 Disk redundancy) is 7TB with 3TB being used for protection.

Both short and long SMART tests work on the WD Red drives, over 10,000 photos, 8000 mp3s, 1000 HD videos and no problems what so ever.

Since it's an experiment, I have the important files backed up via CrashPlan to my Server 2012 Essentials server at the office and did a few test restores that were successful.

I believe it's going to be very easy to update the DSM software without having to recompile the Kernel as the OOTB drivers that are packed with the DSM have all the proper drivers for the HP box, I just need to get the lights working and that's about it.

Author:  erail [ Wed May 08, 2013 6:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Yes, you should be right about the drivers but the DSM software, as far as I can tell, doesn't like the mediasmart hardware without some mods. Let me know if you find anything different.

Author:  Haochi [ Wed May 15, 2013 2:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Hallo Everyone,

First of all a big thanks to ajafar, for the well written guide. I read it a couple of days ago and it made me want to try XPEnology DSM 4.2 on my MSS EX490. Today i bought myself a new HD, so i could just remove the excisting HD's, so i wouldn't mess anything up. I bought a Western Digital 2TB Red edition and came home and plugged it in. Followed the guide and created a USB thump drive - Plugged it in the MSS and ran Synology Assistant on my PC. Right away it found the DiskStation and I installed the .PAT file on it (with USB Thumb unplugged). So far so good. From here on, it was all downhill though. After the restart I plugged in the USB again and rebooted the machine. Now the server wouldn't start up, it got no IP address assigned and i couldn't get in touch with it. Only if I pulled out the HD and rebooted could i see the DiskStation again. This made me try a various of things - Nothing worked of course. I noticed that every time I installed the .PAT file, the HD would create 2 partitions, one on 2.6gb and one on 2.0gb. I was ready to toss my new HD out of the window so i did something rather radical. I mounted the original HD with my HomeServer software installed. Followed the guide and WUPTI - It worked perfectly. After i got it running i mounted the WD 2TB red disk again, and now I could add it to my storage pool (SHR so I only get a backup and no extra space) but it worked.

Now here comes the big question. Why couldn't I install XPEnology on the WD 2TB red disk but i could on the old original disk? And do any of you know a solution to my problem, so I don't need to use the original disk anymore.?

Author:  ajafar [ Tue May 28, 2013 1:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Haochi wrote:
Hallo Everyone,

First of all a big thanks to ajafar, for the well written guide. I read it a couple of days ago and it made me want to try XPEnology DSM 4.2 on my MSS EX490. Today i bought myself a new HD, so i could just remove the excisting HD's, so i wouldn't mess anything up. I bought a Western Digital 2TB Red edition and came home and plugged it in. Followed the guide and created a USB thump drive - Plugged it in the MSS and ran Synology Assistant on my PC. Right away it found the DiskStation and I installed the .PAT file on it (with USB Thumb unplugged). So far so good. From here on, it was all downhill though. After the restart I plugged in the USB again and rebooted the machine. Now the server wouldn't start up, it got no IP address assigned and i couldn't get in touch with it. Only if I pulled out the HD and rebooted could i see the DiskStation again. This made me try a various of things - Nothing worked of course. I noticed that every time I installed the .PAT file, the HD would create 2 partitions, one on 2.6gb and one on 2.0gb. I was ready to toss my new HD out of the window so i did something rather radical. I mounted the original HD with my HomeServer software installed. Followed the guide and WUPTI - It worked perfectly. After i got it running i mounted the WD 2TB red disk again, and now I could add it to my storage pool (SHR so I only get a backup and no extra space) but it worked.

Now here comes the big question. Why couldn't I install XPEnology on the WD 2TB red disk but i could on the old original disk? And do any of you know a solution to my problem, so I don't need to use the original disk anymore.?


I noticed this problem with any hard drive larger than 1.5tb sitting in the first bay, after installing the Synology software onto let's say the first 2tb drive, a reboot would try to boot off of that hard drive instead of the USB. The way around it (till I get a chance to go into the bios and disable booting from the internal hard drives) is to pull the first hard drive out while booting up. As soon as the blinking red and blue light goes to blinking white and blue, then goes back to red and blue, I slide the drive in. This allows the system to boot up from the USB thumb drive but gives you enough time to put the hard drive back in before the OS starts up. I don't know why the first bay does not like drives larger than 1.5tb that it doesn't allow the USB thumbdrive to boot up first but this is a workaround for the time being.

Author:  erail [ Tue May 28, 2013 6:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

I have a 2TB drive in the first slot and have no problems booting up the unit, I do have an EX485 though. I have 4 2TB drives in the unit and everything is OK. The 485 has the modded EX495 bios and a quad core Q8200S. I did not change the bios since it's been running WHS2011.

Author:  BillEpi [ Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Ajafar: Many thanks for all your useful information regarding running DSM on MediaSmart servers. I followed your directions and all worked pretty well. The install process did end up with an error at the end however. How can I re-run this setup? The Synology Assistant doesn't offer me the that option any more.

Also, is the idea here to always keep the USB drive flash drive plugged into the back of the MediaSmart server for booting purposes? Or --- can I set this up such that it will boot off the EX495's system drive?

Author:  Gr3ml1n [ Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Just got this up and running in just a few minutes, thanks for the great how-to

Any way I can get this to boot off the HDD rather than the USB stick ? right now it seems I have to pull the bottom drive wait 20 to let it boot from the thumb drive then reinsert the drive, obviously not ideal, even just booting from the thumb drive by default would be an improvement. EX490 btw.

Author:  BillEpi [ Sat Nov 02, 2013 4:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Gr3ml1n: I just read your post. I'm relatively new to using DSM 4.2 on my EX495, but have had a problem-free experience for the past month. I have found my EX495 will boot properly and automatically off my USB thumb drive, which I just leave plugged into the EX495. Please note Ajafar's April 25th instruction: "Place the USB thumb drive in the back lowest usb port on the EX495, this is important as I found out none of the other ports boot other than that one." If inserted into the correct USB port, it should boot in a "hassle-free" manner.

Author:  Gr3ml1n [ Sun Nov 03, 2013 4:38 am ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Unfortunately can't say the same with my 490, I must remove the bottom drive or else it simply won't boot from the thumb drive at all (it's in the bottom USB Slot). At the moment I don't have a VGA cable to be able to see what's happening during POST/Boot.

Author:  ern [ Mon Feb 17, 2014 6:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Hi

Anyone tried this on a 475
When I tried it hung on boot in the bios
Tried a couple of different USB keys and no luck

Also used this process (which I used to install server essentials 2012r2)
1:USB thumb drive is connected to the bottom USB port
2:system hard drive has been erased doesn't contain a bootable partition
3:pressed F12 during the boot and selected to boot from USB-CDROM

This did not work for DSM 4.2

Any Ideas

Ern

Author:  pitchucold [ Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: DSM 4.2 Running on EX495

Hi ajafar, all

I am a newbie to xpenlogy. I am planning to install DSM on my EX495 as detailed in your post. I have couple of quick questions: (apologies if my questions are answered or stupid)

1. I am planning to reuse my WD Green 2 TB Drives. I have read that RED drives are better but Green can still work. Do you have any thoughts on this?

2. Is there a latest guide which i need to follow to install DSM on EX495? Can i go for DSM 4.3?

3. I intend to have WHS V1 System Drives separately. Just in case things did not go as planned, I intend to put the WHS V1 Disks back and bring them to thier earlier form. Would this approach work ? Would installing DSM4.2 / DSM 4.3 not allow going back to WHSV1.

regards,
Prasanna KV

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