Your Synology NAS can serve as a dedicated storage server for Windows, providing storage over iSCSI.The iSCSI LUNs will act as a local drive in Windows. This article guides you through setting up LUNs as additional disks in Windows.

The instructions in this article are based on Windows 11. If you are using other versions and cannot apply the instructions on your device, refer to Microsoft Documentation for more details.

Before you start

Make sure you have:

• Set up a Synology NAS that supports iSCSI.
• Installed DSM.
• Completed LUN and iSCSI settings on DSM.¹

Establish iSCSI connections

1. Press Windows key + S and type iSCSI Initiator to launch iSCSI Initiator.
2. Go to the Discovery tab and click Discover Portal… to add the IP address or DNS name of your Synology NAS. It will appear in Target portals.
3. Go to the Target tab and click Refresh. Select a target in Discovered targets and click Connect.
4. If you have configured advanced settings for the target on DSM, such as CRC checksum or CHAP, click Advanced to complete the corresponding settings. If not, click OK to finish.

Add LUN to Windows as storage

1. Press Windows key + S and type Computer Management to launch Computer Management.
2. Select Disk Management from the left panel. Right-click on the disk whose size matches that of your LUN and select Online. The disk status will become Not Initialized.
3. Right-click on the disk again and select Initialize Disk. Select the partition method and click OK. The disk status will become Online.
4. Right-click on the disk and select New Simple Volume. Follow the wizard to complete.
5. Your Windows now has an additional drive with the assigned drive letter as extra storage.²