Virtual DSM (VDSM) License 1-Instance

Running services directly on the host DSM means everything shares one system: one package set, one set of users, one thing to break during an upgrade. A separate instance inside Virtual Machine Manager isolates the workload — web stack here, mail there, a sandbox for testing over there — while the underlying disks, RAID and snapshots stay exactly as they are.

Each instance also comes with MailPlus Server and its five free email accounts, which is enough to run a company domain without buying anything else. Beyond five mailboxes you can add a MailPlus license to the same instance.

This is not a spec-sheet claim: the site you are reading runs as Docker containers inside a Virtual DSM instance on our own NAS, and the order confirmation and license key emails you receive from us are sent by MailPlus Server on that same instance. Storefront, database and mail all live in one virtualised DSM that we can snapshot, resize and move without touching the host.

The single most useful habit is taking a snapshot before every risky change — a plugin upgrade, a PHP version bump, a configuration experiment. If it goes wrong you roll the whole instance back in seconds instead of restoring files one by one and hoping the database still matches. This is what makes it reasonable to run production and experiments on the same box. If you are curious what a full setup looks like, we wrote up the whole home data center build behind this shop.

A whole instance can be exported to a file and kept as an offline backup, then imported on another Synology NAS and started there — the same system, the same packages, the same data, on different hardware. It is a genuinely portable server: useful for migrations, for handing a working environment to a colleague, and for the disaster plan where the original NAS is simply gone.

vCPU count, memory and IO limits are settings, not purchases. When a workload grows you raise them; when a noisy instance starts starving the others you cap its IO. You can also migrate an instance onto faster storage in the same NAS — moving a busy database from HDD to SSD is a job for the wizard, not a rebuild. Synology documents the options in the Virtual Machine Manager help pages. Moving a running instance between separate NAS units, rather than between volumes, is a clustering feature and needs a VMM Pro license.

• One additional Virtual DSM instance in Virtual Machine Manager
• Three years of Virtual DSM software upgrades for that instance
• Usable as an extension: activate a new key to renew the upgrade window on an existing instance
• Active on one Synology NAS at a time, transferable when you migrate
• 24/7 automated delivery — the key is shown on screen at checkout and emailed to you

After the three years the instance keeps running; it simply stops receiving Virtual DSM updates until a new key is applied. Check the official license pack page if you want Synology’s own wording on the terms.

The ceiling depends on the model and on installed memory — the figures below assume the minimum 1 vCPU / 1 GB per instance, so anything doing real work will need more and the practical number will be lower.

Orders are fulfilled automatically around the clock. The key appears on screen the moment payment clears and is emailed to you as a record, and every order is covered by our 60-day return policy on unused, unactivated keys. Once a key has been activated it cannot be returned.

• Virtual DSM License Pack — official product page
• Virtual Machine Manager package overview
• Virtual Machine Manager features
• Creating and managing a Virtual DSM instance
• Tutorial: migrating a Virtual DSM instance