Knowledge Center

External Devices

Go to Control Panel > External Devices > External Devices to view a list of external storage devices connected to your Synology NAS.

External Drives

By connecting an external drive to the system, you will be able to share its drive capacity through a system-created shared folder named usbshare[number] (for USB drives) or satashare[number] (for eSATA drives). The shared folder will be removed automatically when the external drive is ejected from the system.

Synology NAS recognizes the following formats: Btrfs, ext3, ext4, FAT32, exFAT, HFS Plus, and NTFS. Any unrecognized external drive will have to be formatted first before they can be used on the system.

Note:

  1. Some models support HFS Plus with read-only.
  2. Journal is not supported on HFS Plus.
  3. You will need to install exFAT Access from Package Center to enable Synology NAS to support exFAT. Check which Synology product models support exFAT format.
  4. Make sure you eject the external drive before unplugging it.
  5. Btrfs is available on specific models only. Check if your model supports Btrfs.

To access disc images:

Synology NAS supports mounting virtual drives to access the contents of disc images on external devices with File Station. Learn how to mount virtual drives.

Note:

  • Supported disc image format: ".iso" files using the ISO 9660 and UDF file system.

To format the drive:

Click Format and follow the wizard. You can format your external drives to ext4 and FAT32 with Synology NAS.

Note:

  1. Make sure to back up your data before formatting the external drive. All data will be deleted during the process and cannot be restored.
  2. To format the external drive to ext4, FAT32, or exFAT format, the drive capacity must be larger than 1 GB.
  3. When the drive is formatted as ext4 format, it is only recognized by Synology NAS. If you would like to read data directly from your external drive with a PC or Mac, choose FAT32 format.

To perform S.M.A.R.T. Test:

The S.M.A.R.T. test examines and reports the drive status and condition, alerting you of possible drive failure.

  • To perform S.M.A.R.T. Test, click the S.M.A.R.T. Test button and follow the wizard.
  • To check the test results, click S.M.A.R.T. Info.

Note:

  • Test time varies depending on your system environment.

Limitations

Drive formatting is not available in the following situations:

  • The external drive is being initialized, i.e., when the external device has just been plugged in.
  • The capacity of the external drive is less than 1 GB (ext3/ext4 format).
  • The external drive is being formatted.
  • When the system is backing up files to the external drive.
  • The external drive is damaged.

Note:

  • Btrfs is available on specific models only. Check if your model supports Btrfs.

To set default permissions for all external devices:

You can set default permissions by clicking Settings > Default Permissions and specifying which users or groups can access, view, or modify external devices and their contents. When an external device is connected to your Synology NAS, the permissions you specified will be assigned to that external device automatically.

In the permissions window, do the following to set default permissions:

  1. Select one of the following from the drop-down menu:
    • System internal user: Assign permissions for default system users, such as the Anonymous FTP/WebDAV user.
    • Local users: Assign permissions for local users (including guest).
    • Local groups: Assign permissions for local groups.
  2. Tick or untick checkboxes to customize external devices' access permissions for each user or group:
    • Read/Write: The user or group can access and make changes to the files and folders on the external devices.
    • Read only: The user or group can access the files and folders on the external devices.
    • No access: The user or group cannot access the files and folders on the external devices.

To set advanced settings for external devices:

You can set advanced settings for your external devices by clicking Settings > Advanced.

  • Tick Enable delayed allocation for ext4 to help improve write performance. However, please note that data loss may occur if there is power failure or external devices are improperly unmounted.
  • Tick Prohibiting the use of USB port to block all types of USB devices from connecting to your external devices.
  • Tick Allow non-admin users to eject USB devices so that non-admin users can click the external device icon on the taskbar to eject USB devices.

To eject external devices:

  1. Select the external device you want to eject.
  2. Click Eject.

Note:

  • To troubleshoot issues related to external drives, please refer to this article.