Synology NAS DS 920+ RAM Upgrade - an emotional roller coaster

Lately, with the whole pandemic shit going up and down in a never-ending loop, at least here in Germany, I felt like I need a little hardware upgrade to my setup again (I swear, if this pandemic ever ends, I will be having my own 21 U rack with a small sized company network inside. At least if I keep it at this pace….). So, I decided to go for two things at once: first, fixing my stone-age backup methods and second, finally getting myself the playground, I wanted for so long.

After some research, I bought the DS 920+ NAS from Synology. It’s a 4 bay NAS that not only can backup your files or act as a media server but also can be used to run VMs on it. And after I configured my backup and let the initial process run for only unspectacular two days (yes, I store a lot of big files as I have a history editing videos and astronomic RAW pictures), it was time to start playing around with what else is possible. 

Because I kinda start specializing myself in that topic at work right now, it didn’t take me long to develop the phenomenal idea of turning my NAS into a Splunk server. Well, to sum it up shortly for you guys: Splunk is a platform for data analysis in any kind of way… and that results in heavy workload for the instance it runs on. So, the guide for Splunk installations on a Synology NAS is: do have at least 6 GB of RAM or it will potentially end in a global catastrophic and everyone will die… ok that’s not really what it says but if I do it, I wanna do it right. Luckily, the DS 920+ has an empty RAM slot that can be easily accessed by pulling out the right and maybe (depends on the size of your hands) disk next to it. It is officially purposed for RAM upgrades, since the 4 GB RAM that is installed out of the box is a solid onboard install.

So, I started to search for an upgrade guide on the internet and found several guides that told me an additional RAM of 16 GB could be installed and it would work out so in total the NAS could go up to 20 GB. If you now think something like: “4 GB + 16 GB on RAM in two sticks… WTF? “ then you probably think about the same thing that I did: isn’t it normally not possible to mix different RAM sizes? Well, yes. But more on this later. According to the guides, upgrading with two different sizes of RAM is an unofficial step so nothing to blame here on Synology for later turnouts. And having 20 GB on a NAS, how crazy would that be?! Not necessary to mention that I had to try it out. From one of the guides, I looked up the specs of the RAM they used. The NAS slot supports DDR4 SODIMM, what is also often used in laptops. It goes at 2666 MHz and as said, I tried the 16 GB version. Just like the person in the guide, I ordered from crucial, so I made it as similar as possible.

Let’s say, it’s not ruining your bank account but still, 16 GB of laptop RAM isn’t a cheap deal and so I really hoped it would work as easy as seen in these guides. Long story short: RAM came, RAM got installed, RAM didn’t work. (Just a little practice tip aside: if you have to take out NAS discs that already are set up, label them, so you can identify the order they go back in. Believe me, it is no fun to install them back in from “what u can remember”. Not like I did this…. Or so…) At first when I installed it, it just hung up somewhere in the booting-process, so I was scared that I indeed messed up the disc-order. The status LED went on and the NAS definitely tried to boot. But after the thrilling time of 20 minutes, what is more than four times longer than the normal average boot time, I wasn’t able to reach the web interface and also ping-test was negative. So I decided to shut it down, take the RAM out and see if it comes up again, because as said, DO LABLE YOUR DISCS. I pressed the power button… no reaction. I hold down the power button, no reaction… shuuut! Well, I had no choice left than pulling the power cord what almost did cost me a heart attack. 

 

After deinstalling the RAM and repowering the NAS, luckily everything came up clearly as it should. You can’t imagine the adrenaline I went through in these minutes but at least I was able to reconstruct the disc-order right with my pattern recognition so YAY… I guess. The question that was now left behind is why the NAS doesn’t detect the RAM and seems to be stuck in an endless boot-loop, but it does work with the same RAM and same NAS for other people. After some investigation, reinstalling and deinstalling of the RAM and so on, I came to the conclusion that the only difference between my installation (by sides of my always possible stupidity) and the one from the guy in the guide is the firmware version my NAS system is running on. Tbh I don’t have a deep knowledge on firmware designs but I can imagine that they might have changed something in the way the firmware “talks” to the system-components that made the difference in between 4 GB and 16 GB of RAM on two single stick not work together any longer. Maybe on purpose because it could be bad for the system on long-term use, but also maybe just an unintentional side effect.

Anyways, it wasn’t possible for me to make it work. I would be really interested to hear from one of the other people that tried it if it still does work for them with the latest firmware. Because after I once got the idea, I still wanted a Splunk instance so madly that I ordered 4 GB of RAM with the specs officially supported by Synology and I wasn’t that nervous since my intermediate exam when it arrived. I installed it to the NAS and System Engineers will know it: that moment when you want hardware so deeply to work that the bootup always seems to take endlessly and just the moment you are about to lose it, it goes “HELLO WORLD”! To hear that “beep” from the system as a healthcheck-confirmation was absolutely WORTH all of the trouble and lost money on 16 GB of RAM I can’t even send back (does someone coincidentally needs 16GB DDR4 SODIMM? Just asking…). RAM was correctly detected and shown in system stats. Finally, I was able to install my beloved Splunk instance to play around with.

Two key takeaways from this story:

1.     Do the fck label harddrives if you have to move them!

2.     Trust your own feeling when it comes to what is technically          possible a little more ; )

I definitely learned something from this little roller coaster and talking about Splunk: Maybe, if everything works out as planed right now, I will be able to post a little more not only about Splunk but also about security analysis with Splunk in a not so far time.

TOP 5- Topics to get involved in IT at home

As with the ongoing situation, everyone spends more time at home, a lot people use this as a chance to learn something new. So today it's time for my TOP 5 of topics to focus on if you are new to IT and wanna learn in a funny way about it while staying home like the good citizen you are. 

5. Home Network

Home networking requires already some idea about IT, so it might not be something for a bloody beginner, but if you played a little around on microcontrollers, maybe learned about Linux distros and so on… Some day you want to know how all of this comes together and communicates. So, maybe start on improving your WIFI, or get yourself a more professional gate to your internet provider than the one that comes with your contract. If you wanna get it a little more complex, than start splitting your IoT or guest devices into different networks. There is a lot to improve your home network, and in the end you will have learned a ton of stuff. 

4. Online Coding Courses and Challenges

Well, while maybe not the best opportunity if you are new to IT at all, if you wanna  level up your skills in coding what ever language it is, you will find an online course for almost every skill-level and goal that could come to your mind. Often, you can even find beginner courses for free like on solo learn. If you gained some experiences, there are a lot of coding challenges that could not only improve your skills but are a lot of fun too. At university, I had some brilliant minds, facing the "Euler problems" in different languages to see who could do the fast and best. However, solo learn for example also offers you the opportunity to join a 1 vs. 1 with another student to show who knows the coding language best. Getting tired of coding? If you are more experienced in IT, hacking platforms like "hack the box" could be a thing for you. They offer digital labs to try yourself out. 

3. PC-Builds and modding 

We use them every day, PC's, laptops, mobile phones. But most of us just buy them, preassembled from the store and never touch the system. Well, actually, a lot of basic understanding can be earned by thinking of and planning a working system for your custom needs. How much RAM do I need? What socket and therefore mainboard do I need to fit my CPU. And does this mainboard comes with the needed connectors? How much power does my power supply needs to be capable of my components intake? All this questions will throw a massive bunch of basic knowledge on you, which never is a bad thing to have heard about.

2. Homeautomation 

With home-automation, everyone can make his own life a little easier. When this whole pandemic thing started, I intentionally began to "optimize" my flat with all the smart gadgets to make it myself a little more comfy. Also, homeautomation can be done from simply installing the devices you buy to hosting your own controllinstance. So it is as easy as it could go if you just started, and then you can step up the game!

1. Robotics 

On top of this list, Robotics got the first place from me, not only because it is a spectacular way to implement IT, but also because you can physicaly see, how the changes you made to a system have an impact. Also it combines hardware with software and therefore is a good starting point for someone who is new to IT at all. Another advantage is, that the support for homemade robots is huge. From the preassembled kit for kids to the self-build hexapod (as you can find on this blog ;) , the field of robotics comes to your home on nearly every skill-level or cost. And if you are bored building someone else's ideas, you can easily start creating your own project from scratch!  

 

What is your favorite topic in IT to spend your free time with? How did you get started or why didn't until now? Let me know!