Running Synology Storage inside a VM

Running your own storage is cool... 

You may choose among FreeNAS, Windows Server, or several others Linux / BSD distros (UnRAID, OpenFiler, OpenMediaVault). 
They offer plugins to enhance your storage funcionality level, such as ownCloud, plex, torrent (transmission), even automatic torrent download can be achieved using CouchPotato.

However, commercial products has some interesting higher 'quality'. It may offer scheduled tasks for replication or transcoding. Cloud integration, or even commercial plugins for example Antivirus or ready-to-use packages like WordPress, phpBB, etc.

Or you just don't care at all, and all you want is to run Synology for fun, or to evaluate it before make up your mind.

Why Synology? Take a look all features it offers: https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/5.1/features

Let's emulate this appliance using free VMware Player and the firmware provided by an european hacker.

All packages you will need are available from http://www.xpenology.nl/.
But I will describe below how to get it up and running.

1 - Get the Synology DSM 5.1 software for the DS3615xs appliance model from http://www.xpenology.nl/xpenology-software/. The required file is: DSM 5.1-5022 and its Update: DSM 5.1-5022 Update 2

2 - Download the Synology virtual hard disk (.vmdk) for x64 systems from http://www.xpenology.nl/boot-images/. The required file is: XPEnoboot_DS3615xs_5.1-5022.2

3 - Install the VMware Player 7, create a virtual machine using 2GB ram and specify Linux 64bit with 2.6.x kernel, and select the .vmdk from previous step as a system virtual Hard Drive, and create one (or two or more) additional hard drive for data.

If you are using ESXi, you may follow this tutorial with images: http://www.xpenology.nl/vmware-esxi-installatie/

4 - Download the Synology Assistant 5.0 from http://www.xpenology.nl/dsm-software-download/?myvar=1312.

5 - Power it up, and select Install / Upgrade. Now install the Synology Assistant and locate this 'storage' which will be showing in state 'Not Installed'. Select it and launch the installation.

When asked for the pattern file (firmware), provide the dsm 5.1-5022.pat file downloaded in step 1.

6 - After the installation completes, reboot it, and sign in using username 'admin' and blank password.

Now, configure your storage, update it using the downloaded patch, and create some shares and install the additional packages.

Have fun!

Original tutorial in swedden from: http://www.xpenology.nl/installation-dsm-5-1/