Virtual Machine Manager
Features
- Intuitive hypervisor software that allows your Synology NAS servers to run various operating systems on virtual machines
- Centralized management and monitoring of multiple instances of virtual machines in a cluster of multiple Synology NAS servers
- Virtual machine migration for effective hardware resource management
- High availability and disaster recovery solutions for maximum service uptime
- Supports running Virtual DSM that offers robust features and is equally powerful as DiskStation Manager (DSM)
Specifications
- Supports various operation systems, including Windows, Linux, and Virtual DSM (Learn more about the complete list of supported operating systems and the Virtual DSM license)
- Maximum number of virtual machines varies by Synology NAS models
- Supports up to 7 Synology NAS in a cluster
- Privilege control for each virtual machine
- Easy sharing of and access to virtual machines via browser URLs
- Real-time CPU, memory, and network usage monitoring
- Supports virtual machine instant clone
- Supports virtual machine suspension and resumption
- Supported image types:
- Virtual DSM: *.pat
- ISO: *.iso
- Disk: *.img, *.vmdk, *.vdi, *.vhd, *.vhdx, *.qcow2
- Supports exporting a virtual machine as an OVA file
- Schedulable snapshots for each virtual machine
- Maximum number of snapshots per virtual machine: 32 (255 with a VMM Pro license)
- Maximum number of snapshots per host: 65,536
- Supports file-system consistent snapshots (Synology Guest Tool required on the guest OS)
- Maximum number of virtual switches: 4 (4,096 with a VMM Pro license)
- Maximum share links per host: 2 (16 with a VMM Pro license)
- Virtual machine specifications
- CPU
- Compatibility mode for live migrations when CPUs on two hosts are different
- Hyper-V Enlightenments function for I/O performance optimization
- Virtual machine priority for CPU resource reservation
- Maximum number of virtual CPUs varies by Synology NAS models
- RAM
- Minimum RAM
- Virtual machine: 128 MB
- Virtual DSM: 1 GB
- Maximum number varies by Synology NAS models
- Disk
- Supported disk controller: IDE, SATA, VirtIO
- Maximum number of disks per virtual machine/Virtual DSM: 8
- Supports storage Quality of Service (QoS) with virtual machine priority
- Supports maximum and minimum IOPS for each virtual disk
- Network
- Supported network interface: virtio, e1000, rtl8139
- Supports SR-IOV
- Maximum number of virtual interfaces per physical network adapter: 8
- Supports MAC address modification
- Minimum vNIC per virtual machine/Virtual DSM: 1
- Maximum vNIC per virtual machine/Virtual DSM: 8
- Others
- USB 2.0/3.0 passthrough (not supported on Virtual DSM)
- Supported video card: cirrus, vga, vmvga
- Supported boot modes: UEFI BIOS, Legacy BIOS
- Supports running virtual machines instantly restored from Active Backup for Business with compression or encryption at backup destination enabled
- Supports up to four IDE devices
- Advanced features for Virtual Machine Manager Pro:
- Live migration relocates a virtual machine to another host without interrupting ongoing services
- Supports High Availability for virtual machines
- Protection plans secure virtual machines with schedulable snapshot and replication tasks
- Supports running virtual machines on a remote host
- Supports storage migration to a remote host
- Learn more about the VMM Pro license
Limitations
- Virtual machines can only run on Synology NAS with more than 2 GB of memory
- Virtual machine data can only be stored on Btrfs volumes
- Importing/Exporting virtual machines with vDisks larger than 2 TB is not supported
- When the virtual machine firmware is UEFI, the maximum resolution is 800x600
- Virtual DSM does not support the features below:
- USB passthrough
- Control Panel: External Device, Hardware & Power
- Network functions, including wireless dongles, MTU, and LACP
- Without a Virtual DSM license, each host can only run 1 Virtual DSM. The recommended number of Virtual DSM that can run on a host varies by models
- Refer to this page for the list of Synology NAS models supporting Virtual Machine Manager
- Each host in the same cluster must have a unique static IP address
- The High Availability feature is only supported in VMM clusters consisting of more than 3 hosts
- When the feature is enabled, virtual machines can only be moved between active and passive servers
- Web VNC console browser requirements:
- Chrome
- Firefox
- Edge
- Internet Explorer 11
- Safari 10 or above
- Virtual Machine Manager 2.5.0-9432 or above is compatible with Synology High Availability version 2.0.3-0140 or above
- Virtual Machine Manager will reserve at least one CPU thread for the host in an Synology High Availability cluster
- When Virtual Machine Manager is running in a Synology high-availability cluster:
- There can only be one host in the VMM cluster
- SR-IOV is not supported