How do you have VMs stored in Synology NAS?

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jang430

Active Member
Mar 16, 2017
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Hi. We recently chosen Synology DS1618+ as our NAS. We are using ESXi as our host. We have VMs stored on the unit itself, and wanted the same VMs stored in Synology, so as to make sure that if the ESXi host goes down, and we quickly put up another host, we can still point to the same VM containers (this time contained in Synology), and get it back up and running again.

In NAS, usually it's folders that are shown to users. Is this because of SMB Protocol? How do we put VMs in Synology? Do we share a folder? Or how do we go about it?

This is another person's activity, and I would like to chip in on this.
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
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true, but on esxi, nfs is super simple and works really well with no change to default settings.
 

acquacow

Well-Known Member
Feb 15, 2017
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NFS is indeed the way to go. I clone my VMs to my synology and my FreeNAS servers.
 

Marsh

Moderator
May 12, 2013
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Agree, NFS is the way to go.

Then you will soon discover another issue.

google "esxi nfs sync write" or "esxi nfs slow sync write" .

Tested your VM performance before put it in production.
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
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I know with ZFS on the NAS, iSCSI has the same issue (unless you disable writeback cache). Dunno about synology or what FS they use...
 

leonroy

Member
Oct 6, 2015
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Use NFS and beware of performance with Synology Hybrid RAID if running more than a couple of VMs - it has poor IOPs. Use RAID 10 and ideally a SSD write cache. Might be able to use SHR + cache just fine.