Synology NAS First Setup: DSM 6 Basics

Every time a new Synology box lands on my desk I tell myself I'll just click through the wizard, and every time I end up redoing something a week later. The volume layout, the admin account and the update policy are cheap to get right in the first hour and a pain to fix with terabytes on the disks. This is my usual routine on DSM 6.0 for a two- or four-bay unit like a DS216+ or DS916+.

I assume the drives are already in the bays and the NAS is on the same LAN as your PC. Keep the latest .pat file for your model handy too, in case the automatic download fails.

Step 1: Find the NAS and install DSM

Power on the unit and wait for the status LED to blink. Then open a browser and go to:

http://find.synology.com

If that page cannot see the device (some browsers block the local discovery), use the Synology Assistant desktop tool or just try http://diskstation:5000. On Linux you can also find it with a quick scan:

nmap -p 5000 192.168.1.0/24 --open

Click Connect, then Set up. The wizard offers to download DSM automatically; if your NAS has no Internet access yet, choose Manual install and upload the .pat file. Installation wipes the drives, formats the system partition on every disk and reboots. It takes around ten minutes.

Step 2: Create the admin account and disable the default one

The wizard asks for a server name, an administrator username and a password. Do not name the account admin. Pick something else, then after the first login go to Control Panel → User, select the built-in admin account and disable it. The admin account is the one that every brute-force script on the Internet tries first.

While you are in Control Panel → User → Advanced, enable Password Strength Rules and set a minimum length. Later, under Control Panel → Security → Account, enable Auto Block with something like 5 failed attempts within 5 minutes.

Step 3: Choose the update policy

The wizard asks whether DSM should install updates automatically. I set it to Install important updates only. Full automatic upgrades have broken third-party packages on me before, and I'd rather run a minor version update myself after reading the release notes. You can change this later under Control Panel → Update & Restore → Update Settings.

Skip QuickConnect during the wizard if you do not know yet whether you want the NAS reachable from outside; it can be turned on later.

Step 4: Create the storage pool and volume

Open Storage Manager. On DSM 6.0 you create a Disk Group (or use Quick mode which does it for you) and then a Volume on top of it. For a home or small-office unit with mixed drive sizes I use SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) with one-disk redundancy. With four identical disks and a preference for predictable performance, RAID 5 is fine too.

For the file system choose Btrfs if your model supports it (the plus-series and above). Btrfs gives you snapshots, checksums and per-shared-folder quotas; ext4 is the only choice on the entry-level Marvell and Realtek models.

Once the volume is created, check the SMART status of every disk under Storage Manager → HDD/SSD and schedule a monthly Extended SMART test from the Test Scheduler tab.

Step 5: Create shared folders and set services

Control Panel → Shared Folder → Create. I usually start with homes (enabled under Control Panel → User → Advanced → Enable user home service), media, backup and docker if I plan to use the Docker package. Enable the Recycle Bin on any folder where humans will delete things.

Then in Control Panel → File Services turn off what you will not use. On a Windows-only network I disable AFP and NFS and leave SMB with a minimum protocol of SMB2:

# Control Panel -> File Services -> SMB/AFP/NFS -> Advanced Settings
Maximum SMB protocol: SMB3
Minimum SMB protocol: SMB2

Step 6: Network and time

Under Control Panel → Network → Network Interface set a static IP or, better, a DHCP reservation on your router so the address never changes. Under Control Panel → Regional Options → Time enable NTP synchronization with pool.ntp.org; wrong time will break certificate validation and scheduled tasks.

Did it work?

Log out and back in with the new administrator account and confirm that admin is rejected. Map a shared folder from a client PC:

net use Z: \\diskstation\media /persistent:yes

Copy a large file and watch Resource Monitor in DSM to make sure you are getting close to gigabit speed (about 110 MB/s). Finally check Storage Manager → Overview; it should say Healthy.

Things that bit me

• The browser shows "Connection failed" at find.synology.com: the discovery uses broadcast, so it does not cross VLANs or Wi-Fi client isolation. Plug the PC into the same switch.
• The wizard fails with "Failed to install the file. The file is probably corrupted": you downloaded a .pat for the wrong model. The filename must contain your exact model name, for example DSM_DS916+_8451.pat.
• SMB mapping fails from Windows 10 with "You can't access this shared folder because your organization's security policies block unauthenticated guest access": you left the shared folder open to Everyone with guest access. Give the user explicit permissions instead.
• Storage Manager warns "Volume degraded" right after creation: a drive dropped out during parity build. Reseat the drive and check its SMART log before assuming it is bad.

Nothing fancy, but I don't install a single package until this is done.