Storage & iSCSI

To meet the standard of a powerful storage server, Synology DiskStation is dedicated to providing the optimal solutions for clients in sharing files with different structures and sizes.

While SAN (Storage Access Network) environment can greatly improve file sharing efficiency and performance, traditional SAN solution requires expensive setup of fiber-topic equipments and advanced expertise in order to manage the intricate system.

In comparison, an alternative SAN structure, or the so-called “iSCSI” (Internet Small Computer System Interface), offers a different approach that requires less capital investment and resources and can still reach a respectably high throughput in performance.

iSCSI is an Internet protocol for linking data storage facilities. By carrying SCSI commands over IP networks, iSCSI can facilitate data transfers over LAN, WAN, or the Internet. It also supports the storage and retrieval of location-independent data.

Through iSCSI, the space on storage server will be regarded as local disks by client’s operation system. But in reality, all data transferred to the disk are actually transferred over network to the storage server.

Multiple LUNs Mapping

In an iSCSI environment, LUNs are essentially numbered disk drives, or can be seen as volumes that will be virtually attached to local machine to imitate that of a physical hard drive.

An initiator is a client device used from the local machine to establish connectivity to the iSCSI Target, under which the LUNs are created. Initiators can also establish and manage file systems on iSCSI LUNs, as they would a raw SCSI or IDE hard drive.

DSM3.1 offers flexible iSCSI management, allowing you to map multiple iSCSI LUNs to multiple iSCSI Targets. In another word, it would be easier to manage the Targets, rather than every single LUN you create.

Fully Utilize Your Storage Space

Achieve optimal space utilization with DSM. Thin Provisioning provides dynamic and on-demand storage space allocation, driving up utilization efficiency towards 100%.

For example, you can create a 5 TB iSCSI LUN on a 4TB volume with Thing Provisioning. The technology specializes in filling-up the existing volume space first. Once the volume is full and you find yourself requiring the extra 1TB iSCSI LUN storage space, simply expand your volume by adding additional hard disks. Thing Provisioning will allocate the iSCSI LUN storage space accordingly.

iSCSI Target Masking

An iSCSI Target is like an interface. When an iSCSI Target is connected by an iSCSI initiator, all the LUNs mapped to the iSCSI Target are virtually attached to the client operation system.

With DSM, you can manage up to 10 or 256 iSCSI Targets (varies on different models) on one Synology DiskStation. This comes with iSCSI Target Masking for improved security. You can configure different file access privileges, such as read/write, read only and no access, to limit a local machine from having full access to a specific iSCSI Target.

For instance, if you had an iSCSI LUN dedicated to store information that needs to constantly undergo status update and changing it might jeopardize company operations, setting privileges to read only becomes effectively useful – everyone in the company can see the latest documents but have no authority to modify them.

Multiple Sessions & SPC-3 PR Support

Although under most circumstances, connecting multiple initiators to the same iSCSI Target under the file systems of EXT3, EXT4 and NTFS will corrupt the data. However, by enabling multiple sessions and having the appropriate file systems¹, you can allow one or more initiators to connect to one iSCSI Target simultaneously.

Besides the features above, MC/S (Multiple Connections per Session) and MPIO (Multiple Path I/O) provide connection failover and load balance benefits to strengthen the stability of a network storage environment. As fully compliant with SPC-3 PR standard, DSM now supports Microsoft Windows 2008 Server Failover Clustering.

Utilize iSNS Server For Enhanced Target Organization

Managing a small number of iSCSI LUNs and Targets might be easy, but doing so for hundreds or even thousands of them will most likely exhaust the IT administrator when it requires a lot more efforts just to add or remove anything . To cope with that, DSM enhances its iSCSI support with implementation on iSNS (Internet Storage Name Service). Acting like a DDNS server for managing IP addresses and often used in businesses with complex storage deployment, iSNS facilitates IT staffs by providing intelligent storage discovery and management of iSCSI devices.

Learn How to use Virtualized Storage to Expand with SMB's Storage Needs

Our free webinar shows you how to create, mount, and use an iSCSI target with the Synology DiskStation. A great way to help you get started.

For further information on the webinar 'How to Use Virtualized Storage to Expand with SMB's Storage Needs' click here.

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1. VMware Virtual machine File System (VMFS) or Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS)

Applied Models

DiskStation
11-series: DS3611xs, RS3411xs, RS3411RPxs, DS2411+, RS2211+, RS2211RP+, RS411, DS1511+, DS411+, DS411, DS411j, DS411slim, DS211+, D211, DS211j, DS111
10-series: RS810+, RS810RP+, DS1010+, DS710+, DS410, DS410j, DS210+, DS210j, DS110+, DS110j
9-series: RS409+, RS409RP+, RS409, DS509+, DS409+, DS409, DS209+II, DS209+, DS209, DS109+, DS109, DS409slim
8-series: RS408, RS408-RP, DS508, DS408

‧Below models only support some parts of the features:
DS109j, DS108j, RS407, CS407, CS407e, DS207+, DS207, DS107+, DS107, DS107e