From the Field: Synology DS 923+

By vJoeG · September 21, 2023

Welcome back to another blog post for the Synology line of Tower NAS products. The DiskStation 923+ is an ideal form factor for small businesses and home offices. All of my Synology devices are in use for my VMware home lab as well as my Plex streaming platform. The focus of this post will be the addition of a SAN storage LUN and attachment to ESXi and vCenter to leverage your storage in the virtual environment.

If you want to see more around the initial setup of the Synology software you can jump over to my previous blog post From the Field: Synology DiskStation DS1621

This post and the accompanying video is sponsored by Synology. The team reached out to me to review and test their newest Home Office/Small business storage tower and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Head on over to my Synology DS923+ Video (add real link) and watch the unboxing, Synology setup and ESX/vCenter configuration.

Let’s get into the ESXi setup. Login to the Synology URL

• Login to your Synology URL and you will be at the start screen. Select Control Panel

  

• Once in the control panel select SAN Manager

  

• Click start the first time in, head to LUN in the left column and create new LUN

  

• Specify your LUN properties like, Name, Description, What Volume you wish to use from those available on your Synology, Thick or Thin provisioning and access permissions

  

• Confirm all of your chosen settings and you will then have a Healthy LUN ready for operation in vCenter

  

• Repeat the following steps for each ESXi host you want to communicate with your new Synology LUN
  • Login to your ESXi host and go to Storage then Click Software iSCSI

    

  • Click on ‘Add Dynamic Target” and enter the IP address of your Synology then click Save Configuration

    

  • Back on the Storage screen click Rescan then switch to the Datastores tab and click ‘New Datastore”

    

  • Chose Create new VMFS datastore

    

  • Chose the new Synology iSCSI Disk make your settings selections or keep it at default using the full disk

    

  • Click Yes to the warning that disk contents will be erased

    

• When you have finished allocation the LUN to all of your ESXi hosts login to vCenter and head over to storage where you will see your new Datastore ready for use.

  

And that’s it. With some easy steps and configuration you have new storage for your VMware environment.

I hope this post was helpful and I encourage you to leave me some questions, comments, feedback. I also highly recommend checking out the following links for Synology and VMware in your journey to build and play with all of the great technology that is out there.

• Synology
• Synology DS923+ – a direct link to the Storage Tower we discussed today
• VMware TechZone – All the latest updates, documentation and videos for VMware products and services
• VMware Communities – The best place to join your peers, ask questions and be part of a great user community

Until next time, get out there and build fun things, cook great food and enjoy all that this life has to offer!