Only use this for test purpose. If you really like Synology DSM and want to use it private or for business you should buy a Synology NAS and pay for the hardware and software.
My reasons to test the Synology DSM 7.x on my own hardware was because of the new Synology Photos. For a long time I have been searching for a good photo library management software. I wanted to try it out before using a lot of money on a new Synology NAS. I already have two. My very first Synology DS207 (not running, just kept for nostalgia), and my DS1511+ used for storage. Both too old to run DSM 7.x.
This post is about how to get Synology DSM 7.x running on your own hardware and as a virtual machine on VMWare ESXi. It’s not a step by step guide, but a reference to other pages and forums on how to do this.
I installed mine as a VM on my server running VMWare ESXi. Quite easy when you already have the hardware running, and easy to cleanup afterwards.
I used the following pages / forums to find my way of installing Synology DSM 7.x:
- This page is for the overview of which DSM platform you want to use. You need this information later on in the installation process.
DSM 7.x Loaders and Platforms - This page is the first part of the installation guide when running it on VMWare ESXi.
Tutorial: Install DSM 7.x with TinyCore RedPill (TCRP) Loader on ESXi - This page is the final part of the installation guide – it’s the general installation guide, but because of the previous page, you can skip step 1 & 2, and go right ahead to step 3.
Tutorial: Install/Migrate to DSM 7.x with TinyCore RedPill (TCRP) Loader
All in all it took be around 20 minutes to get it up and running. After that my Synology Photos test could start.
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