Adding a new disk as a new volume in Synology

I am a big fan of Synology Network Storage Devices. I have the Synology DS1511+ and the Synology DX510 Expansion.

In the former, I used up all the 5 slots and in the latter, I used up 2 slots. I have a spare hard disk of 320GB sitting around and I decided I want to set this up in the Synology as a Single Volume on its own. No RAID. Nothing. The purpose is to use it as a sort of “transfer” hard disk between the different PCs/Macs at home as well as most importantly, as a place for internet downloads (e.g BT, NZB, Direct Downloads). I dont mind if this volume crashed or have a lot of READ/WRITES to it….

So here’s the whole PAINLESS process.. Synology really rocks..

Start by putting in the hard disk (PHYSICALLY) into a spare slot. I chose the slot furthest away from the 2 existing hard disks in the DX510. By the way, I did this hot swap method. Which means I did not shut down the Synology but just open the hard disk case and put it right in. All the time, the Synology was running.

Then you can see it recognized by Synology in Storage Manager (DSM) but is not initialized. You can also see that I have two volumes already running.

Click on the CREATE button on the top left corner and then choose CUSTOM

I am creating a NEW SINGLE VOLUME

Next screen is COMFORT screen 🙂 It tells me that I am okay. I can choose that ONE SINGLE DISK (instead of all the existing disks and creating a mess which I am good at)..

And NO protection (You have no choice anyway.. you have a single disk for a single volume.. what do you expect.. :))

At next screen, I just choose the CHECKING.. 320GB should not take very long (in the end, it took about 4 hours..)

And the creating of the 3rd Volume has started ! 🙂

Going back to HDD Management, you can see that now i have officially 3 volumes in the Synology

Finally it completes !!

So how do I use this new 3rd Volume ? Well, go to SHARED FOLDER configuration in DSM and set up a new Shared Folder and linked it to the VOLUME 3. I called the SHARE FOLDER, Scratch

And then in apps like Download Station of Synology, I tell the app to download to this new Shared Folder. In Windows and Mac, I also have this new shared folder set up as a network drive and even my dBpoweramp Music Converter (dMC) has its default “Processed” folder for completed music conversion (from FLAC to MP3) set to this folder…

There will quite a few bits of READ and WRITE to this hard disk due to my new found interest in seedbox and Bukit Timah (.. never mind, if you dont know what that is..)