Synology HDD db

Description

Add your SATA or SAS HDDs and SSDs plus SATA and NVMe M.2 drives to your Synology's compatible drive databases, including your Synology M.2 PCIe card and Expansion Unit databases.

The script works in DSM 7, including DSM 7.2, and DSM 6.

It also has a restore option to undo all the changes made by the script.

What the script does:

• Gets the Synology NAS model and DSM version (so it knows which db files to edit).
• Gets a list of the HDD, SSD, SAS and NVMe drives installed in your Synology NAS.
• Gets each drive's model number and firmware version.
• Backs up the database files if there is no backup already.
• Checks if each drive is already in the Synology's compatible-drive database.
• Adds any missing drives to the Synology's compatible-drive database.
• Optionally prevents DSM auto updating the drive database.
• Optionally disable DSM's "support_disk_compatibility".
• Optionally disable DSM's "support_memory_compatibility" to prevent non-Synology memory notifications.
• Optionally edits max supported memory to match the amount of memory installed, if installed memory is greater than the current max memory setting.
  • DSM only uses the max memory setting when calculating the reserved RAM area size for SSD caches.
• Optionally set write_mostly for your internal HDDs so DSM will normally read from your faster internal SSD(s).
  • It can automatically set DSM to read from your internal SSDs.
  • Or you can tell the script which internal drive(s) DSM should read from.
• Optionally disables Western Digital Device Analytics (aka WDDA) to prevent DSM showing a warning for WD drives that are 3 years old.
  • DSM 7.2.1 already has WDDA disabled.
• Enables M2D20, M2D18, M2D17 and E10M20-T1 if present on Synology NAS that don't officially support them.
  • Newer NAS models may also need Synology_enable_M2_card
• Checks that M.2 volume support is enabled (on models that have M.2 slots or PCIe slots).
• Enables creating M.2 storage pools and volumes from within Storage Manager (newer models only?).
  • Including M.2 drives in PCIe adaptor cards like M2D20, M2D18, M2D17 and E10M20-T1 for DSM 7.2 and above (schedule the script to run boot).
• Makes DSM recheck disk compatibility so rebooting is not needed if you don't have M.2 drives (DSM 7 only).
  • If you have M.2 drives you may need to reboot.
  • Reminds you that you may need to reboot the Synology after running the script.
• Checks if there is a newer version of this script and offers to download it for you.
  • The new version available messages time out so they don't prevent the script running if it is scheduled to run unattended.

Download the script

1. Download the latest version Source code (zip) from https://github.com/007revad/Synology_HDD_db/releases
2. Save the download zip file to a folder on the Synology.
   • Do NOT save the script to a M.2 volume. After a DSM or Storage Manager update the M.2 volume won't be available until after the script has run.
3. Unzip the zip file.

Or via SSH as your regular user:

cd $HOME
wget https://github.com/007revad/Synology_HDD_db/archive/refs/heads/main.zip -O syno_hdd_db.zip
7z x syno_hdd_db.zip
cd Synology_HDD_db-main && ls -ali

Required files

The following files from the downloaded zip file must be in the same folder:

1. syno_hdd_db.sh
2. syno_hdd_vendor_ids.txt
3. dtc or the bin folder containing dtc (only required if you have a E10M20-T1, M2D20 or M2D18 in a NAS that does not support them).

When to run the script

You would need to re-run the script after a DSM update. If you have DSM set to auto update the best option is to run the script every time the Synology boots, and the best way to do that is to setup a scheduled task to run the the script at boot-up.

Note: After you first run the script you may need to reboot the Synology to see the effect of the changes.

Options when running the script

There are optional flags you can use when running the script:

  -s, --showedits       Show edits made to <model>_host db and db.new file(s)
  -n, --noupdate        Prevent DSM updating the compatible drive databases
  -r, --ram             Disable memory compatibility checking (DSM 7.x only)
                        and sets max memory to the amount of installed memory
  -f, --force           Force DSM to not check drive compatibility
                        Do not use this option unless absolutely needed
  -i, --incompatible    Change incompatible drives to supported
                        Do not use this option unless absolutely needed
  -w, --wdda            Disable WD Device Analytics to prevent DSM showing
                        a false warning for WD drives that are 3 years old
                          DSM 7.2.1 already has WDDA disabled
  -p, --pcie            Enable creating volumes on M2 in unknown PCIe adaptor
  -e, --email           Disable colored text in output scheduler emails
  -S, --ssd=DRIVE       Enable write_mostly on slow internal drives so DSM 
                        runs from the fast internal drive(s).
                          -S automatically sets internal SSDs as DSM preferred
                          --ssd=DRIVE requires the fast drive(s) as argument,
                          or restore as the argument to reset drives to default
                          --ssd=sata1 or --ssd=sata1,sata2 or --ssd=sda etc
                          --ssd=restore
      --restore         Undo all changes made by the script (except -S --ssd)
      --autoupdate=AGE  Auto update script (useful when script is scheduled)
                          AGE is how many days old a release must be before
                          auto-updating. AGE must be a number: 0 or greater
  -h, --help            Show this help message
  -v, --version         Show the script version

Notes:

• The -f or --force option is only needed if for some reason your drives still show as unsupported in storage manager.
  • Only use this option as last resort.
  • Using this option will prevent data deduplication from being available, and prevent firmware updates on Synology brand drives.
• If you have some Synology drives and want to update their firmware run the script without --noupdate or -n then do the drive database update from Storage Manager and finally run the script again with your preferred options.

Scheduling the script in Synology's Task Scheduler

See How to schedule a script in Synology Task Scheduler

Running the script via SSH

How to enable SSH and login to DSM via SSH

You run the script in a shell with sudo -s or as root.

sudo -s /path-to-script/syno_hdd_db.sh -nr

Note: Replace /path-to-script/ with the actual path to the script on your Synology.

If you run the script with the --showedits flag it will show you the changes it made to the Synology's compatible-drive database. Obviously this is only useful if you run the script in a shell.

sudo -s /path-to-script/syno_hdd_db.sh -nr --showedits

Note: Replace /path-to-script/ with the actual path to the script on your Synology.

Troubleshooting

If you get a "No such file or directory" error check the following:

1. Make sure you downloaded the zip or rar file to a folder on your Synology (not on your computer).
2. Make sure you unpacked the zip or rar file that you downloaded and are trying to run the syno_hdd_db.sh file.
3. If the path to the script contains any spaces you need to enclose the path/scriptname in double quotes:

   sudo -s "/volume1/my scripts/syno_hdd_db.sh -n"

4. Set the script file as executable:

   sudo chmod +x "/volume1/scripts/syno_hdd_db.sh"

vendor_ids.txt

You only need to edit syno_hdd_vendor_ids.txt if the script warns you about a missing vendor id.

If DSM doesn't know the brand of your NVMe drives they will show up in Storage Manager as Unknown brand, and Unrecognised firmware version.

In this case the script will show you the vendor ID and advise you to add it to the syno_hdd_vendor_ids.txt file.

Credits

• The idea for this script came from a comment made by Empyrealist on the Synology subreddit.
• Thanks for the assistance from Alex_of_Chaos on the Synology subreddit.
• Thanks to dwabraxus and aferende for help detecting connected expansion units.
• Thanks to bartoque on the Synology subreddit for the tip on making the script download the latest release from GitHub.
• Thanks to nicolerenee for pointing out the easiest way to enable creating M.2 storage pools and volumes in Storage Manager.
• Thanks to Xeroxxx for the writemostly suggestion and their writeup here: https://www.techspark.de/speed-up-synology-dsm-with-hdd-ssd/

Donators

Thank you to the PayPal and Buy Me a Coffee donators, GitHub sponsors and hardware donators