After completing the initial DSM installation, your Synology NAS will prompt you to create a storage pool and volume before you can store any files.
A storage pool groups your physical drives into a single unit using RAID, while a volume is the usable partition you read and write your files to.
Quick Answer
Click Create Now on the DSM desktop, select a RAID type, choose your drives, set a volume size and file system, then click Apply to finish the setup.
Step 1: Open the Storage Creation Wizard
After the initial DSM configuration wizard, the desktop will show a prompt to create a storage pool. Click Create Now to launch the Storage Creation Wizard.
Inside the wizard, click Start to begin. The first screen will ask you to choose a RAID type for your new storage pool configuration.
Step 2: Select a RAID Configuration
Choose the RAID type that fits your setup. RAID 1 mirrors two drives for redundancy. RAID 5 uses parity across three or more drives for both speed and protection.
SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) is a good choice if you have drives of mixed sizes, as it automatically maximizes capacity while maintaining fault tolerance.
Once you have selected your preferred RAID type, click Next to proceed to the drive selection step of the storage creation wizard.
Step 3: Select Hard Drives
Check the boxes next to the drives you want to include in the storage pool. The wizard highlights which drives meet the minimum requirements for your RAID choice.
Click Next after selecting all the drives you want to include, and the wizard will advance to the optional drive check configuration step.
Step 4: Drive Check Options
If the drives you are using are brand new, you can skip the drive check. For used or older drives, running the check is strongly recommended before proceeding.
The drive check scans each selected disk for bad sectors and potential hardware issues before creating the storage pool structure on top of them.
Step 5: Configure Volume Size
Enter a name for the volume and specify how much storage pool capacity you want to allocate to it. You can give it the full pool or reserve space for more volumes.
Most users allocate the full pool capacity to a single volume on their first setup. You can create additional volumes later through Storage Manager if needed.
Step 6: Select File System
Choose either Btrfs or ext4 as the file system. Btrfs supports snapshots and built-in checksums, while ext4 is simpler and broadly compatible with older software.
Synology recommends Btrfs for most users because it enables data integrity verification and works with DSM features like Snapshot Replication.
Step 7: Apply and Confirm
Review the confirmation page, which shows an overview of all your selected settings for the storage pool and volume. Click Apply when you are satisfied.
A final confirmation alert will appear. Click OK and the storage pool will be created. The DSM desktop is now fully accessible for you to explore and configure.