DVR recordings to External HD attached to Synology?

Beta Community DVR Beta
#1

Hi :slight_smile:

First off… Loving the Channels DVR on my Apple TV :slight_smile: Thanks for creating this :slight_smile:

I just picked up a new WD external HD and attached it via usb to my Synology NAS; my idea was to use this as the place to store all my DVR recordings from now on. However, when I go to change the location of the recordings to the new device, I don’t see it in the list of places I can choose from. I only see that I can only still select from within the Synology; I am not given any other choices.

Is there anything I can do or am I just stuck with only using the Synology NAS to point my DVR recordings to? Please let me know. I suppose it isn’t a big problem; I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

PS – Past experiences posting on here have shown that there is probably an obvious answer to this that I am not seeing… I do that a lot so just be forewarned :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks :slight_smile:

#2

I’m not sure offhand where external drives get mounted on the Synology…

If you know the path you should be able to type it directly into the DVR recording location box.

#3

You need to have a shared directory on the external drive. It is probably mounted to something like /volumeUSB1/usbshare/

1 Like
#4

Ah that makes sense. Once you create a share on your new drive, it should show up in the Channels DVR storage picker as an option.

#5

Hi :slight_smile: thanks for the answers :slight_smile: Swift replies as always…

I tried looking into doing this yesterday without having to come back and ask you all, but I can’t… so, how exactly do I do this?

#6

I just tested this out. If you add a drive, it’ll show in Control Pantrol panel as “USB x” where x is a number. The rest of this will assume the number is 6. Then go to the Channels interface, uncheck ‘Enable DVR’ and then delete everything in that box. Manually type in /volumeUSB6/ and then when you be able to click the three buttons and it will show you the directories under it.

Depending on how your drive is you should have /volumeUSB6/usbshare then create a folder in there named ‘ChannelsDVR’ or however you want to name it and set that directory as your DVR folder and you’re gtg.

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#7

Thanks timstephens24 :slight_smile: I will give that a shot :slight_smile:

#8

That did not work, unfortunately. I followed your directions timstephens24 and, after I entered in the USB name (it said it was USB Disk 1, so I tried both “volumeUSB1” and “volumeUSBdisk1” just to make sure) it didn’t work… Sorry :confused:

So, I guess I have to create a shared directory on my external drive instead? How do I do that?

#9

What part didn’t work? Did you see a list of folders when you clicked the three dots? Was “usbshare” listed?

#10

Did you put ‘/volumeUSB1/’ or just ‘volumeUSB1’? You definitely need the first forward slash.

#11

I did put “/volumeUSB1/” but nothing. All that shows up is volume 1 (i.e. the Synology).

I think I have to create that shared directory on my external drive; I think I saw a youtube video on how to do that so I will take a look and try. I was just hoping for a cleaner and easier solution.

#12

When I clicked the 3 dots, only the Synology drive shoed, with a list of folders, none of which was “usbshare1”.

Then again, I hadn’t done the shared directory on my external drive; I read timstephen’s reply to mean I didn’t necessarily need to do that and could just type “/volumeusb1/” to access it.

#13

Synology DSM should automatically create a share for the USB drive. You can see the share with one of the Control Panel options… the very first thing there, actually, “Shared Folder”. Or with file manager. Or you can ssh in a do a directory listing.

#14

Thanks for the input djcastaldo – I do see it in the Shared Folder section. I just can’t see it when I go into the Channels DVR settings. Could the issue be that I might need to reformat the external drive? It’s file system type is currently ntfs; do I need to reformat it to EXT4 instead?

#15

``Even though it still says volume1 it's not:

#16

So good, if weird, news… I tried “/volume1usb1/” again just to see if it would work for some random reason (since it didn’t before)… and it actually worked! No clue why today was different from yesterday or the day before, but I think we are fine now.

Thanks for all the help and all the input :slight_smile: A newbie like me really appreciates your comments and, especially, your patience :slight_smile: