Storage Manager is a built-in application on your NAS that helps you efficiently manage and monitor your NAS storage via a centralized interface. When setting up your NAS for the first time, you'll need to configure your storage settings in Storage Manager before you can set up things like shared folders and other packages.

Simplify storage management on your Synology NAS

• Intuitive management: Accelerate storage management tasks through a centralized interface.
• Clear insights: See at a glance how your storage is organized and how much of it is available through an informative interface.
• Simple management: Conduct array repairs and drive replacement, set up hot spares, and more through easy-to-understand wizards and processes.
• On-demand scalability: Scale up your storage capacity without affecting operations.

When launching Storage Manager for the first time, the Storage Creation Wizard will help you create and set up storage pools and volumes. Here are some of the storage basics to keep in mind while setting up your storage system:

• A drive is a physical storage device. This could be a hard drive or a solid-state drive (SSD) that is used to store data.
• RAID is a data storage technology that helps you combine multiple drives into a single storage space (storage pool). There are different types of RAID, each providing different levels of performance, storage capacity, and reliability. See Choose a RAID Type or check out the RAID Calculator for more information.
• A storage pool is a single storage unit that is made up of one or more drives.
• A volume is a storage space that is created on a storage pool. You need at least one volume in order to be able to store data on your Synology NAS. On the other hand, having multiple volumes allows you to divide storage space among different users or applications.
• An SSD Cache is an optional layer that is mounted onto a volume for improved random input/output performance. See the Create an SSD cache section for details.
• Shared folders are the basic directories where you can store files and folders on your Synology NAS.
• A LUN is a logical storage unit that is connected as a block device and used to access specific volumes over a storage area network (SAN) or via other high-priority network protocols. This allows other devices on the network to access and use the volume. Once you've created a volume, you can create a LUN in SAN Manager.

• This article assumes that you have already installed your drives and installed DSM on your Synology NAS.
• Make sure you are using a DSM account belonging to the administrators group.
• Make sure there are no important data on the drives that the storage pool is going to be created on. Any existing data will be deleted during the creation process.
• Make sure your drives show the following statuses at Storage Manager > HDD/SSD.
  • Allocation Status: Initialized or Not Initialized
  • Health Status: Healthy
• We recommend using drives that are compatible with your NAS and are on the Synology Products Compatibility List. Using incompatible drives may affect system performance and result in data loss.

You need to create a storage pool before creating a volume since a volume is constructed on a storage pool.

Create a storage pool

1. Go to the DSM Main Menu and select Storage Manager .
   
2. If this is your first time using Storage Manager, a first-time creation wizard will pop up to guide you through the creation process. This allows you to create a storage pool and volume at the same time. Otherwise, go to Storage and click Create > Create Storage Pool.
3. Configure storage pool properties:
   • RAID type: Select a RAID type to protect your storage pool. Different RAID types offer different levels of data protection and features.
     Once a RAID type is selected from the drop-down menu, the following information will be shown:
     • Minimum number of drives: The minimum number of drives required for the selected RAID type.
     • Drive fault tolerance: The maximum number of allowed failed drives for the selected RAID type.
   • Drive type: The drive type of the installed SSD or HDD. (This field only appears on certain Synology NAS models.)
4. Select one or more drives to create the storage pool.
   • If your Synology NAS model supports the RAID Group feature, you can configure multiple RAID arrays in a storage pool to balance your device's storage capacity and data security
5. Follow the steps in the wizard to finish the setup.

Create a volume

You can only create a volume after you've created a storage pool.

1. Go to Storage and click Create > Create Volume.
2. Choose a storage pool where the volume will be created.
3. Allocate the capacity as needed, and then click Next:^{1 2}
   • If you want to allocate all of the capacity to the volume, click the Max button.
   • If you want to allocate some of the capacity to the volume, enter a size in the Modify allocated size (GB) field. You can use the remaining capacity to create more volumes later.
4. Select a file system and click Next. We recommend Btrfs for its data protection features. Learn more about the differences between file systems.
5. Click Apply to confirm your settings.

Expand the pool and volume size

You can expand the capacity of your storage pool or volume by adding drives, replacing your drives with larger ones, changing the RAID type, or other methods. Refer to the storage pool/volume expansion article for instructions and details.

Change the RAID type of a storage pool

Storage pools can be changed from one RAID type to another without losing existing data. Refer to the change a storage pool's RAID type article for instructions and details.

Configure hot spare drives

Hot spare drives are standby drives that can repair a degraded storage pool by automatically replacing a failed drive. Refer to the hot spare help article for setup instructions and details.

SSD cache, also known as flash caching, is a cost-effective way to improve the performance of HDD arrays by storing the most frequently accessed data on SSDs. See Important considerations when creating SSD cache for more information.

To learn how to set up an SSD cache on your NAS, refer to the SSD Cache help article.

For more details about using Synology SSD Cache as a storage solution, refer to the Synology SSD Cache White Paper.

Check your drive statuses

Make sure to regularly check your drive statuses in Storage Manager to help maintain your storage system.

Repair your storage pool

Storage pool errors may occur as a result of a drive failure or other problems. For most cases, you can follow the steps these articles to diagnose and fix the errors.

• Repair a Storage Pool
• Repair a Storage Pool with Failed System Partitions
• Repair a Storage Pool with a Degraded Status
• Troubleshoot a Storage Pool with a Crashed Status
• Replacing a Failed Hard Drive and Repairing a Degraded Storage Pool | Synology (video tutorial)

Software specs

• Full software specifications for Storage Manager

Related videos and articles

• First-time Synology NAS Installation & Setup Guide (video tutorial)
• Frequently asked questions about Storage Manager
• Storage Manager help articles